A Welsh Revolution?

Today sees the voters in Wales go to the Polls to elect a new Welsh Senedd. Plaid Cymru looks to be on the brink of an extraordinary breakthrough with Welsh Labour facing a historic humiliation and Reform UK muscling in as a serious contender for first place.

The final YouGov MRP for ITV Wales puts Plaid out in front on the popular vote, with Reform snapping at its heels and Labour languishing in a very bad third. Wales’ new 96‑member parliament is almost certain to be hung and the age of guaranteed Labour dominance over.

On YouGov’s central numbers, Plaid sits on roughly 33%, Reform on 29% and Labour on just 13% – more than 20 points down on its 2021 performance. The Greens and Conservatives are hovering around 10%, with the Lib Dems stuck in single digits. PollCheck’s rolling average tells much the same story, giving Plaid 31.2%, Reform 28.4% and Labour 13.5%.

It is the seat projections that really hammers home the scale of the shift. An earlier, YouGov MRP model suggested that Reform could emerge with 37 seats and Plaid with 36, leaving Labour marooned on a risible 13. The Greens were projected to win seven, the Tories three and the Lib Dems one – with an outside chance that one or both of those last two could be wiped out entirely under the new electoral system. Today will show us just how accurate these polls have been.

Now even if Reform edges Plaid on seats, the maths for government still look brutal for the right. YouGov’s simulations show Plaid, Labour and the Greens holding a majority in 96% of scenarios; Plaid and Labour alone have the numbers in almost half. In other words, the most likely First Minister is a Plaid leader at the head of a broadly hard‑left alliance, not a Reform insurgence. Reform will oppose, not govern. That’s bad news for Wales and the UK more broadly.

For Labour, the symbolism of all of this will be devastating. Losing its position as Wales’s natural party of government – and possibly most likely finishing third in votes – is a political earthquake. Tomorrow, Wales will change forever.