In 1999, the Welsh language current affairs magazine Barn carried a striking front page proclaiming – in Spanish – long live the Welsh revolution. It marked the opening of the first Welsh parliament in almost 600 years. It was a historic moment in Welsh history, although the wafer-thin victory for home rule in the 1997 referendum and the presence of Queen Elizabeth II suggests something less significant than the genuine revolutions of 1789, 1917 and 1989.

Above: Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iowerth, the next first minister of Wales. Photo: BBC

Almost 30 years on, Wales has experienced a true revolution, electing into government a pro-independence party for the first time. Plaid Cymru achieved what even two years ago was unthinkable, sweeping aside Labour, the party that has won every national election in Wales since the 1920s, the decade Plaid was formed. Labour suffered the humiliation of winning just nine seats and losing first minister Eluned Morgan’s own seat. Welsh Labour came third behind Plaid and Reform UK, and only just scraped ahead of the Conservatives.

Following Thursday’s elections, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will all have separatist governments, although Plaid Cymru will not pursue independence during this Senedd (parliament).

Until 2026, Plaid Cymru had perennially under performed. Despite winning a Westminster seat in 1966 – a year before the first Scottish National Party (SNP) MP was elected – it failed to make a significant breakthrough in the decades that followed. Winning the Rhondda and Islwyn constituencies in the first National Assembly elections in 1999 proved mere blips. Labour seemed destined to come out on top in Wales no matter how badly the party performed in UK general elections. It seemed perverse, as Labour was traditionally an uncompromisingly centralist party, and many of its leading figures in Wales such as Neil Kinnock campaigned against the Callaghan government’s modest proposals for a Welsh assembly in the 1970s. (Callaghan was a Cardiff MP, and I shared my memories of meeting him here.)

Why has Wales been so slow to assert its own political identity, as Scotland often did? History inevitably played a part. Wales didn’t have its own civic society or legal system, reflecting the country’s subjugation by England after the enforced acts of union of 1536 and 1542. (In medieval times, Wales was unusual in giving women property and divorce rights but lost its legal identity after the so-called union with England.) The statutory definition of England included Wales until as late as 1967, and the most south easterly Welsh county, Monmouthshire, was technically part of England until 1974. The country has also played a huge role in creating and sustaining the Labour movement: the party’s first leader, Keir Hardie, was a Merthyr Tydfil MP, while Aneurin Bevan is revered to this day as the founder of the NHS. Finally, the growth of Welsh political identity has been inhibited by the lack of a truly Welsh media – the English media have always had a bigger role in shaping opinion here than in Scotland, and are notorious for ignoring Wales. (Many English national papers publish separate editions for Scotland and Ireland, but Wales doesn’t even merit a page.)

Plaid Cymru’s breakthrough

All this makes Plaid Cymru’s success in the 2026 Senedd election remarkable. The party’s breakthrough was enabled by the UK Labour government’s disastrous performance under Keir Starmer. That opportunity was then boosted by so many voters’ desire to stop Reform UK – especially younger voters. Plaid had the priceless advantage of winning the Caerphilly Senedd by-election six months before May’s nationwide Senedd poll. It showed that it was the only party that could beat Reform.

Reform revealed its true character as an English nationalist party in an advert it took out in the Powys County Times just days before the 7 May election. The ad urged voters to vote Reform to ‘Get Starmer out’. Leading Welsh political commentator Will Hayward pointed out that the words London and Londoners appeared seven times but Reform didn’t mention Wales once. Reform doesn’t care about Wales, and the country would fare very badly if that party ever came to power in Westminster.

I feel sorry for Eluned Morgan, the defeated Labour first minister. She earned a place in history as the first female head of government in Wales, after devoting her life to public service. With her departure comes the end of my family links to Wales’s first ministers which started with Alun Michael in 1999.

Keir Starmer ensured the doom of Welsh Labour with his characteristic tin ear. He could have helped his Cardiff Bay counterpart by agreeing to Cardiff’s request to give the Welsh government powers over justice, policing and the crown estate, in line with Scotland. But instead he told his cabinet not to be ‘overly deferential’ to the devolved administrations. He was unmoved at Welsh outrage that the HS2 high speed rail project was designated an England and Wales project, depriving Wales of the extra funding that it would have received (and Scotland and Northern Ireland got) through the Barnett formula. It left Morgan looking weak, although it’s hard to see Rhun ap Iorwerth being more successful.

Plaid’s greatest test

Like Labour in 2024, Plaid is now enjoying the sweet taste of winning power. The party must learn the stark lessons of Starmer’s catastrophic first 22 months in power. Rhun ap Iorwerth’s party will immediately become the incumbent, and countless examples from around the democratic world show that incumbency can be fatal when a party next faces the voters. Governing well will not be enough. Plaid’s inheritance is as bad as Starmer’s in 2024, yet voters will quickly blame Rhun ap Iorwerth for failing Welsh schools and hospitals.

If Plaid is to build a better Wales, it has to prioritise growing the Welsh economy. Wales has long lagged behind Scotland and England in nurturing an entrepreneurial, start up culture. Since the collapse of the coal and steel industries, the country has been reliant on public sector jobs and attracting foreign companies to set up big factories, many of which later closed. Without a successful economy, Wales won’t be able to afford better public services. There’s only so much that a devolved rather than independent country can do, but Plaid should think boldly about what might be learned from the likes of Estonia – population 1.3 million compared with Wales’s 3 million – in nurturing innovation. (As well as Ireland, which Plaid politicians often highlight.) If the party is ever to make a serious case for independence, it has to build a more sustainable Welsh economy that is not totally reliant on the British state. (Will Hayward’s Independent Nation: Should Wales Leave the UK? is essential reading for anyone wanting a dispassionate and entertaining examination of whether Wales could go it alone.)

The SNP’s re-election despite its dismal record in power over the past 19 years may suggest it doesn’t matter how badly you do. Plaid would be wise not to assume it would enjoy the SNP’s benefit of the doubt in the 2030 Senedd election. Progressive parties need to recognise that the comfortable old assumption that we could rely on the state (whether UK government or the devolved governments) to fix everything is no longer tenable. I believe in an active state, but we can no longer go on as we have been, giving the patient the same medicine and hoping against all evidence that it proves as efficacious as Lily the Pink’s medicinal compound. The loss of jobs caused by the Starmer government’s increase in employment costs is a sobering reminder of the real world impact of ill-judged measures. Plaid cannot afford to blow this huge opportunity.

Cymru am byth.