Mike Hedges has warned that Wales could face another Senedd election within a year, as Labour Members of the Senedd began to count the cost of their historic defeat.
The veteran MS, who held on in the new Gwyr Abertawe constituency, said that if Plaid Cymru formed a minority government and their budget fell, an election could follow — just as Labour’s budgets had faced repeated challenges from Plaid in the outgoing Senedd.
“Let’s assume that Plaid form a government — when they bring their budget forward, well, the other parties will have the same chance to do to Plaid what Plaid have done to Labour consistently over the budget,” he told reporter Will Hayward at the count. “So if the budget falls, we might have an election.”
Rhun ap Iorwerth confirmed on Saturday that he will lead a Plaid minority government, working with other parties on a case-by-case basis rather than seeking a formal coalition. Plaid won 43 seats — six short of the 49 needed for a majority — with Labour reduced to just nine seats after a catastrophic night for the party.
Speaking with what he described as “disappointment,” Hedges said the scale of the Labour collapse had shocked him, revealing that one box he had expected to win over half the votes in had seen his party come third.
He said he had been canvassing on the doorstep until the day before the election and had been told by one voter — who he said had backed him for 30 years — that the man had not voted for him this time. “He apologised for it, but I can’t count apologies in the votes,” Hedges said.
Hedges was critical of the new large constituency system introduced for the expanded Senedd, saying that if he had been running Labour’s campaign he would “not have had this system” as a starting point.
He also called for legislation — originally championed by former Plaid leader Adam Price — to prevent politicians lying at election time, suggesting it would have changed the nature of the campaign. “If we’d got that through, we’d have had a different dialogue,” he said.
First Minister Eluned Morgan lost her seat and resigned as Welsh Labour leader on election night, with Ken Skates confirmed as interim leader on Saturday afternoon as the party began to assess its position. The defeat brought 27 years of Labour rule in Wales to an end.
On the prospect of working with the other parties in the new Senedd, Hedges was blunt, saying he had “great difficulty” working with either Plaid Cymru or Reform UK. He said Plaid’s independence agenda would cost Wales between £12 billion and £16 billion a year — roughly equivalent to the health budget — while Reform “want to turn us into West England.”
“But we’re going to all have to work together for the benefit of the people of Wales,” he added.
