Labour’s equivalence dilemma

Jonathan Edwards

First Minister Eluned Morgan didn’t hold back in her address to the Labour UK conference when she described Reform and Plaid Cymru as “Divisive nationalism in different forms. Different poison, same bottle.”

It was certainly language meant to wind up the most tribal of Labour activists, but also a blunt message to those Labour voters who are indicating that they are considering supporting Plaid Cymru.

Whether that cohort of voters considers it a credible position is another matter altogether.

Labour knows a sizeable chunk of their supporters are flirting with Plaid Cymru and the attack line is aimed at scaring these individuals that making the switch isn’t a cash free transaction. The First Minister is using the toxicity of Reform in the eyes of Labour supporters to tarnish their other main rival Plaid Cymru.

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Debate

The comment brought back to me a debate that has raged within Plaid Cymru for decades, long before the emergence of Reform.

On the one hand some thought that the best way for Plaid to approach the political position the party was in was to create a division line based on Welsh nationalism and Welsh unionism. In this scenario there was equivalence between Labour and the Conservatives. The other side of the debate, predominantly the Left of the party, viewed the crucial division line as one between the Tories and the rest.

The emphasis between the two has swayed over the years within the party. Leanne Wood and Adam Price very much viewed the Welsh political context via the latter approach. Whereas Rhun ap Iorwerth has adopted the former, to date.

I tended to view matters via the first approach. Firstly, after years in Westminster I couldn’t tell the difference in approach to Wales between Labour and the Tories.

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Concessions

They were both fundamentally Westminster rule parties. And secondly, Plaid in the devolution era to date has been a party hoping to gain concessions for Wales as a junior partner and therefore the hand of negotiation was likely to be stronger if there were more than one option on the table.

Labour after collapsing in the polls now find themselves in a similar situation. The party had two main choices about how to confront the emerging political landscape. It could have determined that either Reform (or Plaid Cymru) were the main enemy and attempted to polarise against it.

Instead, the First Minister has decided to create a narrative of political equivalence between Plaid and Reform, and a very hostile one at that.

This leads to a legitimate question about future coalition options. Describing an opponent as “poison” makes it difficult to imagine sustaining that party in government, be it formally or informally. If this is the position of the First Minister, then the natural development would be for her to rule out propping up a Plaid Cymru First Minister.

Contradiction

Yet to date, from what I understand, an absolutist negative position in terms of coalition in any form only applies to Reform. There seems to be a degree of contradiction in the current position, therefore.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, in purely electoral terms I don’t think the First Minister has much to lose by ruling out serving under Rhun ap Iorwerth for a multitude of reasons.

However, some political commentators argue that Wales and the UK is now entering a new political age where our politics will very much be determined by a division between two voting blocs. Reform or the next incarnation of the radical right on the one hand and those vying to stop them on the other.

The first act of this new age looks like involving our country next May. In this context Labour and Plaid would surely be on the same side of the divide, and therefore the First Minister’s apparent strategy would seem incoherent.

As we head towards May 2026, Labour needs to come to a determination on whether Reform and Plaid Cymru are indeed politically equivalent while thinking through the consequences of that answer. The strategic options when you are third in the polls aren’t particularly easy, but they can nevertheless have far-reaching consequences.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr from 2010-24