Plaid Cymru’s candidate Lindsay Whittle won almost half of the vote (Alamy)
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Plaid Cymru has beaten Reform UK in the Welsh Parliament by-election for Caerphilly, with Labour coming in third.
Plaid Cymru’s candidate Lindsay Whittle won almost half of the vote (47 per cent), while Reform came in second with 36 per cent.
Overall, Whittle received 15,961 votes, Reform’s Llyr Powell 12,113, and Labour’s Richard Tunnicliffe 3,713. Gareth Potter, who stood for the Conservatives, received just 690 votes.
PA Media reported Whittle’s comments after his historic win, with the Plaid candidate claiming Labour is “now is definitely a dying beast”.
“You are on your way out after 100-plus years.”
The result means that Labour will face a harder battle to get business through the Welsh Parliament.
After the party won half of the Senedd’s 60 seats at the last election in 2021, it already relied on at least one opposition member to pass laws and agree its budget.
The Senedd by‑election, which was triggered by the sudden death of Hefin David, the Labour Member of the Senedd (MS) for Caerphilly earlier this year, was widely anticipated as a bellwether result ahead of Welsh Parliament elections next May.
The seat, which had been a Labour stronghold in Westminster for more than a century, was deemed a two-horse race between right-wing Reform and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru after Labour saw its support collapse.
The First Minister of Wales Eluned Morgan told PoliticsHome in September that Labour figures in Westminster had been slow to realise the electoral danger facing the party in Wales.
Speaking after Thursday’s result, Morgan said the by-election had been held “in the toughest of circumstances, and in the midst of difficult headwinds nationally”.
“We take our share of the responsibility for this result. We are listening, we are learning the lessons, and we will come back stronger,” she added.
Reform’s Powell was also positive about what the result means for Wales, insisting the party’s “ground campaign is going to get better”.
On the BBC’s Today programme, political scientist and professor of politics John Curtice said Caerphilly’s result proved Labour could face coming third in the Senedd elections in 2026.
Luke Tryl, the UK director of polling group More in Common, posted on X that the win for Plaid Cymru showed the significance of “progressive tactical voting in (relatively) high turnout elections to block Reform”.
“Voters in this race knew it was a Plaid-Reform contest and voted accordingly.”