Lord Hain warns of 'dangerous' political shift in Wales

Personally I think it's too late to change the perception of Eluned Morgan, and indeed some polls are even predicting she may lose her seat in the Senedd!

No matter what Welsh Labour does now - it will be too late. People want change and that is reflected in the polls.

In other words we need to keep on voting Labour to ensure that Wales remains politically stable.

Reform have a nasty press pack backing them up with some dubious players in the info market including Steve Bannon, friends with Epstein when he was alive. That such a party polls so well in Wales is terrible. They will wreck and break things for trump. I hope Plaid pull it out the fire. Starmer lost the plot with Reeves which is annoying because they have also done quite a bit.

Any support for Reform in Wales is the result of the 26 years of missed opportunities by Welsh Labour, and historical neglect by both UK Labour and English Conservative governments at Westminster who largely favour the England. And any Labour supporters in Wales who genuinely have our country’s best interests at heart should vote for Plaid Cymru in May to stop Conservative Dan Thomas and Reform from using and abusing Wales on behalf of their cult leader Nigel Farage. Because we will suffer if Reform holds the balance of power in May, and it is no good Peter Hain bemoaning the fact when his party weaponized Welsh poverty over the years, designed Welsh devolution to fail in 1997, tried to stop the 2011 referendum on legislative powers, and, at every opportunity, his self-serving Welsh Labour MPs have continually voted down Plaid Cymru motions at Westminster calling for further powers to the Senedd that could have transformed Wales over the past 26 years. Sadly this cynical attitude by Blair and New Labour at Westminster 26 years later has now led to those apathetic voters now willing to embrace their abusers, Trojan Tories , Reform UK. After all, the majority of Reform hierarchy and candidates are far-right former ex- Conservatives, Farage himself being a card holding former Conservative candidate. And since Keir Starmer and Labour won the 2024 general election, we have seen a powerless Eluned Morgan fail to stop Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens from denying the Welsh Government powers over policing and criminal justice. Our Wales Labour MPs agreed with the Conservative decision to deny us rail consequential and have rejected devolving control over the Crown Estate— hundreds of millions that could have gone into the poorest communities in Wales. And that is why, Peter Hain, Eluned Morgan will lose her seat and Welsh Labour be ejected from office.

A lot has changed in the past 10 years in Wales and it’s the youngsters that are driving it. They by and large are angry about the disastrous Brexit and they have every right to be. Of course some uneducated will fall for the English Nationalists rhetoric but Plaid will win the election

Important to understand that the Treaty of Rome, founding principles of the EU, protects the territorial integrity of member states. We saw this being played out with Catalunya and we also saw the Spanish veto being threatened during the Scottish independence referendum. For this reason I voted LEAVE. Now, as the United Kingdom is a "third country". The EU now has no constitutional need to protect the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Quite the opposite, as we saw with Slovenia, Slovakia and the Baltic states. An independent Wales, like Scotland, can now choose it's own destiny, an EFTA application like Norway, or future EU full membership if chosen, like Ireland. Indeed Ireland had a two stage constitutional relationship and decided to leave the British commonwealth a few years prior to EU membership. This is a perfectly valid route to self determination and has nothing to do with ReformUK. We don't need any British nationalists. left or right, to tell us what's on the menu. Rhodiaf Hen Lwybrau, Mister Hain. 

Labour have had over 100 years of being the dominant political party in Cymru with 26 years of power in the Senedd. We are amongst the most economically deprived in Europe. It's time to say enough is enough. The British Labour party (there is no 'Welsh' Labour, the 'Welsh' bit is mere branding) have pushed a British history agenda in our schools for years. Now Labour grandees like Lord Hain are bleating on about Brexit (Labour voters stayed at home partly because Jeremy Corbin thought the EU were damaging his dream of a British socialist utopia - deep down he wanted Brexit) and the rise of Reform are all linked to a greater or lesser extent to Labour's focus on keeping power at all cost in Cymru. Keeping power by teaching a British view (not a Welsh view) of history in our schools. His Lordship and his Labour butties will not be on the right side of history for the damage they have done in our county.

We need to bear in mind that all British unionist parties are English and do whatever England wants. We here a in Wales are too often just a footnote. Remember this when casting your vote.

Peter Hain is a wise man and here i suppose we should be grateful that he targetted his political shift warning at the looming Farij freakshow and not at Plaid Cymru. Yes, we may expect that he would give some encouraging words to Labour but he is clear in his wisdom that he knows that what is left alive on Labours' corpse will have to work with Plaid from May the 8th.

IMO, much of the disengagement with Labour in the Neath Constituency happened whilst Peter Hain was MP. An early example of a 'parachuted' candidtae into a 'safe Labour Seat'. He denigrated many workers in his area, eg inferring that TRW/Cam Gears workers were to blame for being made redundant. Hain was more interested in self promotion, rather than defending his constituents - thus why people turned their backs on his version of 'Labour' his failure to uphold socialist principles.

What I think is particularly fascinating about this election is that Plaid is positioning itself as the change AND the continuity all at once. On the one hand, there is alot of rhetoric about change, renewal, fresh start after 27 years of Labour etc. Yet, there is no actual agenda for any change; in policy terms its all very "steady as she goes and don't let Reform change things". On yesterdays BBC Wales Politics, the Plaid Health spokeman was grilled on Betsi Cadwaladar Health Board and his plan was essentially to leave things as they are but ask the component parts of the Heath Board to work together a bit better than they are doing. It was a remarkable interview for me because the Plaid spokesman was strong on rhetorical damning of the Labour years but then when the questions turned to what Plaid would do differently, the answer was "Not a Lot". Plaids strategy seems to be based on voters accepting that a change of faces will be enough and that a change of agenda is not needed. They could be right but this halfway house where the pitch is "Vote Plaid -new faces who will keep things the same" could easily be threatened by a Reform pitch which is "Reform will change everything". I watched Rhun ap Iorwerths campaign launch this morning and I think his weak flank is that he is a personally impressive speaker who uses all the "Change" buzzwords but there is no substance. His answers to everything amount to "We'll have a Review" or "We'll keep it the same". Mark Drakeford gave a very interesting interview on the weekend in which, when it was suggested to him that Wales is undergoing seismic political change, he responded that he didn't think much had changed. He pointed out that two thirds usually vote for parties of the left and one third vote for parties of the right and that pattern looks likely to remain the same. In other words there is very little difference between voting Plaid or voting Labour and he looked very relaxed about it. I just wonder about the establishment complacency of this you know. The idea that voters can be satisfied with an election result which changes the faces but leaves the agenda untouched seems a bit cynical. I think that the desire for raw, "rip up and start again" change may be bigger than the establishment realises and Plaid may be getting it very wrong in thinking that voters will accept a quick lick of paint to the front door when what they may well want is to bulldoze the house and rebuild it. This is going to be a fascinating watch.