Wales: An Unexpected Tale of Labour Resilience
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Author | Roger Scully |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905817726898 |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
16 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Democratic politics in Wales
has long been characterised
by one-party dominance. The
Labour party have come first
(in both seats and votes) in every general
election from 1922 onwards. Before Labour
dominance there was a sustained Liberal
hegemony in the half-century preceding
World War I. The obverse of this dominance
is sustained Conservative weakness: the
Tories last won a general election in Wales
way back in 1859.
For a while, it appeared that 2017 would
see an historic change in Welsh voting
behaviour. The rst Welsh opinion poll of
the campaign, published the Monday after
Theresa May announced the snap election
in April, saw a sharp spike in Conservative
support, giving them a ten-point lead over
Labour. Suggestions that this poll might be
an outlier were quashed by the next one, in
early May, which put Tory support at an all-
time high in Wales, on 41 percent.
Early in the campaign everything appeared
to favour the Conservatives. Theresa May
was far more popular than Jeremy Corbyn:
indeed, she was the most popular politician
in Wales, something wholly unprecedented
for a Tory. And in Euro-sceptic Wales,
which had voted for Brexit, the focus of the
Conservative campaign was striking a chord.
Voters ranked Brexit as the most important
electoral issue, rated the Conservatives as
clearly the best party to handle it, and the
The General Election –
The View from Across the UK
Wales: An
Unexpected Tale of
Labour Resilience
The 2017 General Election in Wales was historic, but not in the manner anticipated. Instead of the
predicted collapse, Labour won a major victory. Roger Scully reports.
Tories were hoovering up vast proportions of
those Welsh voters who had voted for Ukip
just two years previously.
Then things began to change. The Labour
ghtback in Wales was led by the First
Minister, Carwyn Jones. Two years ago he had
been largely invisible in the Labour general
election campaign. Now Jones was the
main face and voice of Labour’s campaign
materials, with Jeremy Corbyn almost
invisible. He also represented the party in
Welsh television debates, where two years
previously, Labour’s case had been advocated
by Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith. This
focus was understandable: the previous year’s
National Assembly election, and the May
2017 local elections, had shown that even in
dicult times Labour in Wales could still win
Political Insight Sept2017.indd 16 21/07/2017 11:57
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