Plaid Cymru Set To Form Minority Government In Wales
4 min read
Plaid Cymru will aim to form the next Welsh government as a minority administration, ending Labour’s generational rule in Wales.
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said in a speech outside the Senedd on Saturday afternoon that his party would seek to form a minority government.
Rather than forming a coalition with Labour or any other party, the Plaid minority government will need to win votes from other parties in order to get laws and spending plans passed in the Senedd.
The centre-left, pro-independence party has won over 35 per cent of the vote – making it the largest party in the Senedd, but without enough seats to form a majority administration.
Reform UK came second on just below 30 per cent of the vote, while Labour and the Conservatives both suffered dramatic falls in support.
The result on Friday means that Labour will not rule in Wales for the first time since its devolved institutions were set up at the turn of the century. One of the Labour Senedd members to lose their seat was Eluned Morgan, the current first minister.
Speaking on Saturday, ap Iorwerth said: "No UK government, no UK prime minister now or in the future can cast Wales aside or turn a blind eye to our needs and our aspirations as a nation.
"This is history made by the people of Wales. It has been an honour to work on this campaign, but this campaign could only build on the work that has been done over a century of believing in our nation's future.
"It's an immense honour, but we need a wider-angle lens than ever before. Throughout our nation, people have put their faith in Plaid Cymru and numbers never seen before, and we will do everything we can, won't we, to repay the faith that people have put in us."
The results are as follows:
Plaid Cymru: 43 seats (35.4 per cent)
Reform UK: 34 seats (29.3 per cent)
Labour: 9 seats (11.1 per cent)
Conservative: 7 seats (10.7 per cent)
Green: 2 seats (6.7 per cent)
Lib Dems: 1 (4.5 per cent)
Plaid was six seats short of forming a majority in the Senedd.
Ap Iowerth had previously told reporters he was willing to "reach out" to other parties to form a government in Cardiff, but had not committed to forming a coalition.
At a press conference, the Plaid leader said Wales needed a government that represented the “change” which the country voted for.
"We could all see it. We could all sense it. Wales demanded a new beginning.
"And now a new dawn beckons. But we have not yet reached the destination. Far from it. We're just setting out on our journey, and we set off with new leadership, with new energy and new ideas."
In an interview with The House magazine at the end of last year, the Plaid leader compared his party's rise to that of New York's left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Morgan took responsibility for the result and did not lay the blame on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose position is coming under renewed pressure amid major Labour losses across the UK.
But the result in Wales is particularly tricky for Starmer, with the country having historically been a deeply-rooted heartland for Labour.
Morgan and all of her predecessors have been Labour. Even as Labour collapsed in Scotland in 2015, and then saw its historic dominance in post-industrial parts of northern England fall away nearly a decade later, its vote managed to hold up in Wales.
The party's founder, Keir Hardie, represented the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil, and some of its most high-profile figures, like former prime minister Jim Callaghan, have strong links with Wales.
The result represented another major electoral breakthrough for Nigel Farage's Reform UK, which has cemented its status as the main challenger on the centre right of Welsh politics.
