By-election victory gives Reform its first council seat in Cardiff

A massive win for Reform and a large increase in the Lib Dem vote who were behind Plaid in 2022. Very interesting that a lot of the previous Labour vote there and not Plaid. I’ll be criticised again but this is another poor by election result for Plaid. In stark contrast to Lib Dems, Plaid lost votes in this by election. When was the last time they actually won a seat from another party? The only poll they seem to top are from the pollsters not the electorate. Caerphilly where they have has one of their largest presence outside of the Welsh speaking heartlands for 60 years will be crucial. On this result and others throughout this year, I predict that the loyal lieutenant Lindsay will continue with his second streak.

It's a loss for the St mellons and Trowbridge residents. Now we have 3 councillors that don't live in our area.

And now you will start to see more idiocy from this bunch of idiots. Reform could sweep in a low turn out. Bye Bye Wales. Been nice knowing you.

What would've happened with preference voting? Only the 3.1% Con voters would've had Reform down as their second preference so the Abolish Wales party would never have reached the 50% majority threshold needed to win. Probably the second choice of Labour and PC voters would've helped the Dems over the line. Imagine that, a winner the majority were happy enough with.

Truly scary that we share our communities with such dangerous individuals. Imagine living in Wales and despising its culture and people enough to support those that want it destroyed.

It’s very disappointing and almost beyond belief that voters in Cardiff (Trowbridge ward) have been taken in by a candidate from Reform, a far-right English Nationalist party that’s more Tory than the Tories. This is essentially an undemocratic party with a self-appointed leader, Nigel Farage. He is a big pal of US President, Trump, whose profoundly dishonest character was very clearly shown by the recent TV programme “Trump v The Truth”. It illustrated no fewer than 102 of Trump’s lies recently during the last decade. Farage is doing a good job of aping him.  

Turnout was 24 percent so barely 10 percent actually voted for Reform. Hardly a phenomenon are they? This was always going to go to Reform anyway.

Once again the labour vote has collapsed in a seat they held and - looking at the figures - it looks like once again a chunk of the labour vote has gone directly to Reform. If this is repeated in Caerphilly next month then there's a strong possibility they'll win the by-election. And if they do win in Caerphilly afraid to say then we are going to have to get our progressive heads around the grim fact there's a better than even chance Farage's party will be the largest party in the Senedd after next May's elections.

This is what happens when the electorate doesn't bother turning out to vote, you let the eNgLisH nationalists in, If you want to be controlled by England why don't you go and live there?

Reform Party UK – What is it? It is essentially the same party as its predecessors – the Brexit and UKIP parties. Yes, under a new name, but the same political malaise. Same dangerous, clever, manipulative, rabble rousing, leader. Same seething, stirring the bubbling, boiling, cauldron of discontent. It is ultra-British nationalist - it cares absolutely nothing for Wales. Spawned by existential angsts brought on by a continuing inability to come to terms with loss of empire, status, former prestige, exceptionalism, senses of entitlement. Now replaced by an infantile nostalgia, regressiveness, insularism, xenophobia, inability to live with others as equals. 

1232 voted FOR hate movements. 1659 voted AGAINST. Fragmentation and intransigence are our enemy. The turnout of the hate movements combined with the intransigence of the rest landed us in this mess post 2016. A less than 25% turnout shows that in nine years, nothing has been learned. Even in a small council election like this, stamping out the hate movements matters. Consider them little fires in constant need of damping down and when you are called on, like a retained firefighter, you come out with your ballot box ‘hose’ and PUT IT OUT! If you do not, you will allow it to become an all consuming inferno. If you don’t quite get it, hear the words of spaceboy Musk. ‘Violence is coming to YOU’. Anyone awake and interested yet?

I have no doubt that next year more people will vote for left of centre/progressive parties than far-right/right wing parties. The problem is that there are more parties on the left to vote for which could allow the reactionary right to win. Plaid need to hammer home that voting Green, Propel and in most places Lib Dem is just doing Farage's work.

Look at what happened to Jimmy Kimmel. Do we really want to go down the same path? At least the US has a written constitution, unlike the UK. Moreover Reform want to take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights..

The one thing this does show is that voter apathy will hand Reform wins. They have a highly motivated core vote but I'm not sure they'll be able to increase their vote share far beyond those already voting. I'll never understand not taking the brief time, at most a couple of times a year, to vote.

Democracy at work.

I just don't understand people here voting reform. When they were Ukip they were campaigning in England to scrap the Barnett formula, take money from Cymru, Scotland and N Ireland, so they could give England an extra £8 billion a year. The same people are now in charge of Reform, do leopards ever change their spots?

Seeing Reform UK's dire record in office recently, there's a distinct possibility he'll either be sacked, resign due to misconduct , or be removed because of past malicious social media posts.

Ych a fi! This is how they get in. They vote in the elections nobody pays much attention to. Those of us who think voting does not matter in the small elections, there are seats decided on three two or even one vote. Unless you want your country in the hands of these people (some do. I do not want a party bankrolled by billionaire idelogical racial purists), vote EVERY time there is an election

As things presently stand, Reform look to me pretty certain to have a significant presence in the new Senedd after next May, which will be given to them primarily by (a) the preponderance of elderly nostalgic retirees from England's north-west who've opted to end their days living in pleasant places along the north Welsh coast, and (b) voters in the old industrial areas of the south and north-east who feel that successive governments, whether in Cardiff Bay or in Westminster, have done little enough for them over the last forty years and are ready to back a political party which ostentatiously appears to argue for a return to 'the good old days'. That could indeed garner quite a lot of votes for them, but not enough to put them into government on their own. So they'd need a coalition junior partner, and presently I can't see any other faction in the next Senedd likely to be prepared to take on that role.