‘Plaid and Reform exploit anger and fear’: Cymru reflections in Wrexham

As Labour candidates and activists fight for votes and support ahead of the Senedd election in May, LabourList has been travelling around Wales to report on the party’s campaign so far.

Alongside my colleague James Tibbitts, we concluded our time in Wales by heading north to the city of Wrexham, where we met Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales and long-serving Senedd member Ken Skates, who is standing for re-election in the new Fflint Wrecsam ‘super-constituency’.

We wandered around the city ahead of our meeting, where local pride in Wrexham’s football team was everywhere. Shops and cafes along the high street boasted images of the football team, pictures of the club’s celebrity owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and the rallying cry ‘Up the f***ing Reds’. Nowhere is this pride more on display than at The Turf, a pub right next to the football ground, which features an array of posters, drawings and memorabilia of the club, along with red bricks inscribed with the names of supporters.

As we met Skates near the university sports centre for a walk around town, he said that the football team’s success had put the city on the map – but that Wrexham was already on the rise through investment decisions being made by the Welsh government.

“Wrexham is home to what is now Wales’ biggest industrial estate and an investment in road infrastructure to that estate enabled it to flourish – that’s a Welsh government investment.”

A major redevelopment, known as the Wrexham Gateway, is also attracting investment from government, Transport for Wales, the football club, the university and other local partners to improve the public realm, provide an integrated transport hub and create new leisure facilities.

READ MORE: ‘We need to pat ourselves on the back more’: Cymru reflections from Merthyr Tydfil

Skates explained that the investment is proof of the difference Welsh Labour is making in government – and is something put at risk by the prospect of Plaid Cymru or Reform taking the reins of power in the Senedd.

While Welsh Labour is working with the Liverpool City Region for improved connectivity across the border as part of Network North Wales, Skates said that Plaid opposed the move.

“When Network North Wales was launched, the complaint from Plaid wasn’t that it wasn’t ambitious enough or that it wouldn’t secure enough money to transform transport, it was simply because we were working with authorities across the border.

“Plaid put independence ahead of everything, including prosperity and health. They are trying to hide the fact that their purpose is independence. They’re trying to present themselves as progressive, whereas actually in north Wales they’ve been known for decades as the daffodil Tories.”

READ MORE: ‘Ensuring union representation in the Senedd’: Cymru reflections with Shav Taj

For Skates, Reform and Plaid are two sides of the same coin.

“One party is a party of Welsh nationalism, the other is a party of British nationalism.

“If you look at the similarities, both are populists and neither have the prosperity and economic wellbeing of people as their priority. For both, it’s about independence, it’s about purity of culture and identity, they’re both quite nimbyistic when it comes to housebuilding – so they’re very much the same.

“It’s an appeal to people’s negative emotions – they fuel and feed off anger, resentment, envy, fear, insecurity. It’s not about promoting unity, internationalism, prosperity for everybody.”

READ MORE: ‘Standing side by side with people’: Cymru reflections from Cardiff Bay

Although pundits have often spoken about the dissatisfaction the public feel with the Prime Minister, Skates told LabourList that the reverse has been true when he has been on the doorstep – with people “incredibly supportive” of Starmer’s approach on Iran.

“I’m also picking up more and more appreciation that change takes time and people are beginning to see it.

“The other thing I am picking up is that people trust the UK government and this Prime Minister in a way they didn’t trust Boris Johnson and the Tories, or Liz Truss and her government or Rishi Sunak and his government.”

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Polling for the election in less than two months’ time makes for grim reading, with a recent YouGov poll putting Labour third on just 13 percent.

However, Skates expressed optimism that the polls may swing back in Labour’s favour as polling day draws nearer and voters begin to seriously consider their options for the Senedd election.

“I’m not feeling it on the doorstep and I think – and I’m hearing this from colleagues across Wales – polls are always a snapshot of protest. I firmly believe that polls are for political pundits and politicians largely, but you have to caveat them with so many health warnings.

“Whenever an election takes place, people shifting from bad X and Y is to what do we want next. That means incumbency becomes more and more important.

“I respect polls, I love polls, they don’t keep me up at all.”

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