The BBC reports the bad news for Labour from one of its Welsh strongholds:
Labour suffered its first parliamentary defeat in Caerphilly for 100 years as Plaid Cymru claimed victory in the Welsh Parliament by-election.
Nigel Farage’s Reform pledged to “throw everything” at the campaign but its candidate, Llŷr Powell, could only finish second to Plaid’s Lindsay Whittle, who took 47% of the vote with a majority of 3,848.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “deeply disappointed” at the loss, adding: “We clearly need to do much more.”
The result saw a swing of 27% from Labour, which has held the seat in Westminster since the 1920s and in the Senedd since it began at the turn of the century.
Plaid Cymru is the political party that won the seat, not the name of the Plaid candidate. I was hoping it was the candidate’s name. The Plaid candidate is Lindsay Whittle. He’s the man in the blue woolen coat. He won with 47 percent of the vote. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party candidate came in second with 36 percent. Labour came in third with 11 percent. Now that is funny.
The BBC quotes Whittle promising to work like “a Trojan for every man, woman and child.” I’d like to go to the man in the Caerphilly street for an interpretation of that promise. What is Mr. Whittle saying, sir? Troy lost the war. It lives on in memory thanks to Homer.
Brendan O’Neill does not interpret Whittle’s promise, but he does interpret the election results in the Spectator column “All politics is now about stopping Farage.” He writes:
No one can deny what a hand grenade in the body politic this by-election has been. It is brutish proof of the withering of the two big parties. Labour has dominated this part of Wales for decades and yet last night its vote share plummeted by 35 per cent. It got 3,713 votes. There are Monster Raving Loonies who’ve got more. As for the Conservatives – 690 votes! That’s the numerical territory of bored housewives who run on single issues, like fixing potholes.
The entire election felt like a glorious yelp of democratic disdain for Labour and the Tories. It became a clash of the outsiders – Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. Plaid’s victory has caused much gloating among Faragephobic leftists. I don’t know why, for another thing confirmed in this by-election is that Farage is now the behemoth of British politics, so much so that pretty much all elections now boil down to this question: Reform UK or Not Reform UK?
Tactical voting was key to Plaid’s victory. They benefited not so much from a surge in interest in their potty vision of an independent Wales than from the anti-Reform doomerism of the other parties. As Peter Walker of the Guardian says, Plaid became the ‘Stop Reform UK’ party. That’s why the Lib Dems, like Labour, lost votes too, and why the insurgent Greens made barely any gains: because the backers of these ‘progressive’ parties all plumbed for Plaid in a desperate bid to keep Reform out.
A bit further down he observes:
Something extraordinary has happened in British politics these past few months: pretty much every party has become little more than a glorified wing of Not Reform. It’s been clear since conference season, when from Keir Starmer to Zack Polanski they all yapped about how they would Stop Farage.
The Greens are the youth wing of Not Reform. If you’re a member of the overeducated middle classes and you still think someone with a penis can be a lesbian, this is the wing of ABF (Anyone But Farage) for you. Your Party is the Islamist wing of Not Reform. This is the wing that calls Farage a fascist and yet is happy to march shoulder to shoulder with wailing jihadists who dream of destroying the world’s only Jewish state.
O’Neill concludes:
And the Tories? Their nitpicking at Reform policies suggests they want to position themselves as the sensibles of Not Reform – the wing you should vote for if you kind of like Nigel but think he’s a bit much.
It is mind-blowing that virtually the entire political class now defines itself by its opposition to Reform UK. What a testament to the epoch-shaping impact Farage and his happy band of insurgents have had these past few years. This is why Caerphilly was only technically a defeat for Reform UK – because deeper down it confirmed that Reform UK is the only political game in town, and you’re either for it or against it.
The next general election is shaping up to be a sequel to Brexit. It feels like we will once again be asked to Remain or Leave. Let the old establishment Remain intact, or Leave it in the dust by voting Reform – British politics is slowly moulding itself around this electrifying question.
O’Neill’s column is not only perceptive, it has the additional advantage of being funny.
