Welsh Labour facing kicking at next election, warns ex-minister

A former Welsh Labour government minister said his party risks a “kicking” at the next Senedd election in 2026.

First Minister Eluned Morgan has focused on tackling “bread and butter issues”, but Lee Waters said her approach risked failing to challenge the perception Labour was just seeking to manage the “status quo”.

He said it would “take something different” for Labour to avoid the fate of governments losing power across the world, but argued the UK government seemed “unlikely” to offer more support for Wales.

A Welsh Labour spokesperson said Morgan had “delivered the largest financial settlement for Wales since devolution began”.

Later on Tuesday, Morgan, who has been first minister since the summer of 2024, will give a statement in the Senedd on how she plans to deliver for the year.

The first minister said her government had an “ambitious plan”, hailing a “fresh beginning” for Wales.

But Plaid Cymru said the state of the NHS showed she was “failing”.

The 2026 election will be the first in Wales to use an entirely proportional system, under the changes that will also see the number of Senedd members increase from 60 to 96.

An ITV/Cardiff University poll from December suggested Plaid Cymru slightly in front of Labour and Reform with 24% of support vs 23% for the other two, with the Conservatives behind in fourth place.

Labour has led the Welsh government, and won elections, since devolution began in 1999.

Lee Waters has been Llanelli’s Member of the Senedd (MS) since 2016 and served as deputy transport minister while Mark Drakeford was running the Welsh government.

He was responsible for Wales’ 20mph default speed limit policy.

Writing on his blog, Waters questioned whether the UK government would be willing to “favour Wales’ case in the next 18 months in a way that will make a clear impression on a disengaged and deeply disenchanted electorate”.

“It seems unlikely,” he said.

Waters argued: “The international trends are clear. All incumbents are having a kicking. It will take something different for us to avoid that fate.”

Referring to the row that helped bring down the first leader of Labour in the assembly, Alun Michael, Waters said: “At the start of devolution in 1999 a distress call from Wales for extra funding to match EU-aid went unheeded by the UK Treasury and Welsh Labour paid the price.

“A quarter of a century of history may be rhyming.”

Alluding to the losses suffered by his party in Scotland from the late 2000s into the 2010s, Waters added: “The UK Labour Party will wring their hands if Reform get a foothold in Wales in May 2026, and Welsh Labour face a ‘Scottish moment’ which will take a generation to recover from.”

Waters said the “recipe for recovery” in Wales was “being presented as a focus on ‘bread and butter’ issues and better communication, not a deeper challenge to the system of power and inequality”.

His blog criticised the first minister over comments she made on the Rest is Politics podcast.

Asked about what powers should lie in Cardiff, Morgan said she would not be giving powers back to Westminster but suggested “there are little areas around the edges, things like youth justice” that could be devolved.

Waters said Morgan had made “no mention of the Welsh government’s long-established policy of devolving policing and justice”.

“The risk with this approach is that it does nothing to challenge the perception that after over a century as the dominant party in Wales the Labour Party is seen as the establishment and simply seeks to manage the status quo,” he said.

In response a Welsh Labour spokesman said since becoming first minister Morgan has delivered “the largest financial settlement for Wales since devolution began, £50m to improve schools and college buildings, a £1bn investment in Shotton Mill alongside UK government colleagues, an extra £25m for coal tip safety, and free school lunches for every primary school child in Wales, and she’s only just getting started”.

The first minister has promised to cut waiting times and boost education standards while also creating jobs to tackle the climate crisis.

The Welsh government said £157m had been targeted to deliver her promises this financial year.

Ahead of a statement in the Senedd on Tuesday, Morgan said: “We have an ambitious plan for delivery in 2025 and beyond. Working across each of our priority areas and in collaboration with our partners around the country.

“It is important to me as first minister of Wales that we are a government that listens and a government that responds to what it hears and works with our partners to deliver real results for the people of Wales.”

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said: “The new year brings opportunities, but Wales is facing the same old challenges: wages not keeping up with bills, public services struggling, HS2 billions still missing, and an NHS, despite the best efforts of staff, overstretched and at capacity.

“As health minister, Eluned Morgan promised no patient would wait over 12 months for treatment by spring – a promise already broken by virtue of the fact she’s set a new target of bringing two-year waits down to 8,000 by April – and based on December’s numbers even those figures are going in the wrong direction.”

By Gareth Lewis, political editor, BBC Wales News

Free from ministerial responsibility, stepping down at the next Senedd election and with a reputation for speaking his mind Lee Waters has done exactly that.

He appears sceptical that Eluned Morgan’s approach will avert a “kicking” from voters, based as it is – in part at least – on a relationship with UK Labour and Keir Starmer that might not deliver.

For Waters there are echoes of a similar dynamic with a UK Labour government in 1999 which contributed to then-First Secretary Alun Michael’s demise, and the spectre of what happened to the once mighty Labour party in Scotland at the hands of the SNP.

The FM herself says the build-up to the 2026 Senedd election is about delivery and starts the new term with a statement on exactly that – although it is likely to be a reminder of what Welsh government has done and would like to do, rather than a target-setting exercise. Targets are likely to follow throughout the spring.

There are also huge questions marks over Welsh Labour’s record on the NHS and opposition parties – including Reform, who have no representation in the current Senedd – sense an opportunity to do what Lee Waters fears: give the incumbents a kicking.