Caerphilly byelection a triumph of positivity over division, says Plaid Cymru leader

Plaid Cymru can offer a positive vision for Wales for voters who want to reject the divisiveness of Reform UK, the party’s leader has said after a triumphant Welsh parliamentary byelection.Rhun ap Iorwerth said the 47% win for his party in the Caerphilly byelection was a rejection of Reform and its focus on immigration, which, while important, did not overshadow more pressing issues, such as healthcare and housing.Speaking to the Guardian on Friday outside Caerphilly Castle, ap Iorwerth said the win for his party’s candidate, Lindsay Whittle, also underlined a crash in support for Labour, which had “abandoned its values”.He said he accepted tactical voting was in play, but that it was only part of the picture, with some lifelong Labour supporters making a permanent shift in support.“The scale of the results shows the positive engagement with our vision,” he said

‘Reform didn’t have any idea about south Wales’: Plaid Cymru supporters celebrate byelection win

The skies above Caerphilly may have matched the turquoise of Reform UK but it was the green and yellow of Plaid Cymru that dominated the valleys town on Friday morning.The Welsh nationalists trounced their opponents with a hefty 47% of the vote in a Senedd byelection that was framed by many as a potential “canary in the coalmine” moment for Welsh politics.Reform failed to live up to the hype and came second with 36% and Labour’s vote – in a constituency it has held for decades – collapsed to a paltry 11%.It had been expected to be closer between Plaid and Reform, pegged as a 50/50 two-horse race. Both parties threw their weight behind the contest, with their respective leaders, Rhun ap Iorwerth and Nigel Farage, joining the campaign trail earlier this month

Plaid Cymru ousts Labour in Caerphilly byelection

Plaid Cymru has hailed its win at the Caerphilly byelection as a historic moment for Wales, as the dramatic result left the leaders of Labour and Reform UK wounded.Rhun ap Iorwerth’s party, which wants independence for Wales, seized the Senedd (Welsh parliament) constituency from Labour and resisted a fierce challenge from Reform UK.Plaid Cymru’s candidate, Lindsay Whittle, received 15,961 votes, while Reform UK’s Llŷr Powell won 12,113. Labour’s vote collapsed in what had been a stronghold, with its candidate, Richard Tunnicliffe, polling only 3,713 votes.The Welsh nationalists’ triumph was being put down in part to their clear, passionate call for the people of south Wales to reject Reform UK’s stance on immigration

Plaid Cymru’s victory in Caerphilly points to a new kind of electorate

Plaid Cymru’s byelection victory in the Welsh town of Caerphilly is unprecedented. Labour had won every election here for more than a century. Yet the result also feels strangely familiar.Observers of British politics have become accustomed to waking up to unprecedented results. By the end of the previous Westminster parliament, record byelection swings against the incumbent government had become the norm, and elections at all levels had shown an electorate who were willing and able to identify the best-placed party to defeat a disliked option

Caerphilly result is blow to Labour and Reform – and shows parties who cannot adapt will be crushed

If anyone inside No 10 allowed themselves a sigh of relief at Reform UK’s advance being stymied in the Caerphilly byelection, they would then have heard the warning from Lindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru’s winning candidate: “You are on your way out after 100-plus years.”Labour in Wales might or might not be “a dying beast”, as Whittle argued, but this one-off Senedd race illustrated how it was on course to lose its grip on Welsh politics in May, with potentially wider implications for Keir Starmer and his party.The idea that the full Senedd elections will result in Labour being supplanted by Plaid and Reform has long been heralded by polling, but here it was in stark voting figures: a Labour share of 46% when the seat was previously contested in 2021, now down to 11%; a consistent first place in the town since the Senedd was created in 1999 had tumbled to third.This signals not just a seismic shift in Welsh politics, it is also likely to create huge ripples in Westminster, with many Labour MPs and ministers viewing May’s elections in England, Wales and Scotland as a pivotal moment for the prime minister.Whittle’s warning from outside that Labour must “get back to the drawing board” is a sentiment shared by many within the party, and if the forthcoming elections end particularly badly, there will be serious consideration as to whether Starmer is the man to do this

Starmer lays out vision for much-criticised digital ID scheme

Keir Starmer has set out his vision for digital IDs as he fights to win back public support for the scheme.The prime minister’s plan for digital IDs was met with criticism when it was announced last month, and was described as a symptom of his “reverse Midas touch”.Concerns have been raised over civil liberties and cybersecurity, but Starmer insisted that the identification system would never be needed to get into hospital after fears about its potential impact on accessing public services and data protection.He told staff at a Barclays branch in Brighton on Thursday that digital ID would “really help” with security for customers after they told him they dealt with victims of scams and fraud every day.He said customers at the bank had told him they were “really excited about it” and had relayed “everyday examples where you can just cut the faff”