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[May 1999; Socialist Outlook 25]

The results of the first Welsh Assembly elections were a shock to everyone in Wales. Plaid Cymru achieved success beyond the hopes of even their wildest dreamers, while Labour activists were left stunned, 'crushed' in their own words, and without a majority in the Assembly.

The Assembly was elected using an additional member system, with 40 constituency seats and 20 additional seats used to ensure greater proportionality. Welsh voters had two votes in these elections, the first for their constituency representative and the second used to allocate the additional seats.

The election was characterised by a low turnout, a collapse in the Labour vote and a significant upsurge in Plaid Cymru support. It was Labour's lowest share of the vote in Wales since the I930s, with Plaid Cymru only five per cent behind. Plaid's most astonishing successes were in winning constituency seats in the Rhondda, Islwyn, Llanelli and Conwy. These results show that not only did Labour voters stay home in significant numbers, but that many voted Plaid. It had been predicted before the election that Labour voters might use their second vote to protest against New Labour by voting Plaid. In the event, many Labour voters gave both their first and second votes to Plaid, and also voted for them in the council elections, held on the same day.

This led to Plaid Cymru taking control of Rhondda, Cynon Taff and Caerffili councils, both of which lie in Labour's valley heartlands. Consider these facts:

In the 1997 British general election, Labour's share of the vote was greater than 60 per cent in I5 Welsh constituencies. In the first Welsh general election, this share remained above 60 per cent in only two constituencies, Blaenau Gwent and Cardiff West. Cardiff West, held in Westminster by Rhodri Morgan, was the only constituency which registered a swing to Labour.

In the 1997 British general election, the Plaid Cymru vote was greater than 10 per cent in only 10 constituencies. In 1999. there were only two constituencies in which it remained in single figures: Monmouth and Brecon and Radnor The swing to Plaid Cymru was greater than 30 per cent in a swathe of valley constituencies.

The parties standing to the left of Labour and Plaid Cymru polled poorly. The United Socialists also stood in nine first-past-the-post seats, where they achieved somewhat better results.

Their best results were achieved in Merthyr Tydfil and Clwyd South, where they obtained 2.3 per cent of the votes. On this occasion the votes of disillusioned Labour supporters went to Plaid Cymru and not to the small left wing parties.

Why? As the votes were counted on May 7, Labour's well prepared spin on the results gradually fell apart. Both Peter Hain and John Prescott were interviewed early in the day and blamed complacency and the 'politics of contentment' for the low turnout!

As the day wore on it became increasingly untenable to argue that complacency and contentment had caused such large numbers of Labour voters to switch to Plaid. It became apparent that Labour's main strategy in these elections, of frightening voters away from Plaid with talk of 'nationalist madness', had abjectly failed.

Writing in The Western Mail after the result, Peter Hain began by blaming the two Labour leadership contests for alienating voters. He went on to claim that this was in no way a protest against New Labour, but simply that the Government had failed to motivate its Old Labour base to vote. He ago blamed the result on the unpopularity of some Labour councils and that the lack of a perceived Tory threat in Wales. His conclusion: Welsh Labour needs to be more New Labour.

An article by Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West, took issue with Hain's view, and identified the blatantly undemocratic imposition of Alun Michael as a major factor in Labour voters' discontent. It was, he said 'A case of dragons led by poodles.' His conclusion. Welsh Labour needs to be less New Labour, not more.

Paul Flynn is undoubtedly correct in identifying the election results as a protest vote against the rightwing policies of the Blair Government and its arrogant and undemocratic practices.

The vote may also reflect a deeper development in Welsh politics, that of a growth in support for Plaid Cymru as a reaction against the practice of Welsh Labour, at both council and parliamentary level.

Opinion polls have indicated that Welsh voters will vote differently in British and Welsh general elections. At a British state level, they will vote against the Tories and for a Labour government.

On a Welsh level, they are far more prepared to support Plaid Cymru, since the Tories do not pose a threat.

The Labour leadership in Wales has tried to blame everyone but themselves for this disastrous result. The left in the party must try to ensure that a thorough post-mortem be carried out which fixes the blame squarely where it belongs.

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