In many ways, the 2026 Senedd election was historic. Wales is the first country in Great Britain to adopt proportional representation, utilising the D’Hondt voting system over a Mixed Member voting system. Its parliament has expanded from 60 to 96 members. For the first time in over a century, Labour is no longer the dominant party in Wales. Plaid is now the largest party, with its leader, Rhun ap Iorweth, becoming the new First Minister of Wales. Reform UK is the official opposition, and the Greens have made their Senedd debut.
But for all that has changed, one thing has remained the same: the Welsh Liberal Democrats still only hold one seat.
There is no point in pretending this was the result we wanted. While Jane Dodds’ re-election guarantees there is a voice for Welsh liberalism in the Senedd, this campaign has been one of survival, when it should have been one of growth.
The story of this election is far from complex. Welsh Labour’s support collapsed, while Plaid Cymru and Reform UK grew to represent the governing alternative and protest alternative, respectively. Their messages were simple and concentrated. Plaid argued that Labour had governed for too long, that Reform UK was dangerous, and only the literal Party of Wales could govern Wales as it should be. Reform, meanwhile, argued that the system was broken because of the same old establishment politicians, and it was time for a radical shift.
And what was the Welsh Liberal Democrat message? We argued that “only we can stop independence” and that “only we can stop Reform”. An understandable goal for a party that opposes nationalism and populism, but also one that painted us as reactive and always on the back foot. While Plaid and Reform wanted to bring change to the Welsh government, for better or worse, we told voters to be afraid of change, playing into both parties’ hands by framing ourselves as “just another establishment pro-union party”.
We needed to show that Welsh liberalism could not only be the antidote to nationalism and populism, but also what it could offer the Welsh people. Instead, we fought this election on terms chosen by Plaid and Reform, playing catch-up from the very beginning. Telling voters we would stop them both provides a great foundation to build from, if we had then expanded on our own ideas beyond just echoing those sentiments.
Let’s be clear here: we were right to be uncompromising in our opposition to Reform’s regressive and nasty style of politics. We never capitulated, and that was good. But Reform cannot be beaten just by telling people they’re dangerous. Reform, like all forms of far-right populism, grows where people feel isolated, services feel broken, and politics feels hopeless. We needed to provide both a material and a moral response.
The same goes for opposing Welsh Independence. It is a legitimate Liberal Democrat position, and we were right to support it. But this needed to be coupled with what we would do instead. I was lucky enough to campaign alongside Sam Bennett in Swansea and Gower, who made the argument of federalism to people on the doorstep, explaining how far we could take Welsh self-government, and why that would be a more feasible alternative to independence. But this was never echoed in our national argument.
If we tell voters “you can’t leave”, they are entitled to ask us, “What kind of union are you asking us to stay in?” If we don’t tell people the alternative beyond just devolving a few more policy areas from Westminster, then no wonder they won’t have faith in us.
I see the lesson for the Welsh Lib Dems to learn as this: a warning about the real dangers nationalism and populism pose, for as long as both ideologies exist. But that warning needs to be accompanied by a vision. We should be opposing independence with real constitutional reform. We should oppose Reform with visible local renewal. And we should oppose the politics of complacency with competent, community-rooted liberalism.
The next Welsh Liberal Democrat campaign cannot just tell Welsh voters what needs to be stopped, but show them what Welsh liberalism is ready to build.
* Jack Meredith is a member of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and an active campaigner and canvasser with Swansea and Gower Liberal Democrats. His writing focuses on democratic reform, social justice, trade unionism, economic democracy, and the institutional foundations of effective government. He has written for the Fabians, Lib Dem Voice, Liberator, Nation Cymru, Bylines Cymru, and Centre Think Tank.
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16 Comments
Small correction, Northern Ireland already used PR for Assembly elections before Wales.
Other than that I’m in agreement, Lib Dems should be championing our support for Federalism loudly and clearly.
Couldn’t agree more. The lack of vision from the party in Wales is why we’ve spend the past decade simply trying to keep our head above the water. Unless that changes, we won’t even keep the seat we have after the next election, and in the meantime we’re becoming an irrelevance in every other part of Wales, making the task of rebuilding all the more challenging.
@Rosemary Runswick it’s why I specified Great Britain, consisting of just Scotland, England and Wales, and not the United Kingdom, which would have encompassed Northern Ireland 😁
Plaid’s message ‘only we can stop Reform’ is the only thing that cut through to me from their leaflets, etc.
I read something like 63% of people intending to vote Plaid said it wasn’t to give them a mandate for independence.
The narrative from weeks before was that it would be straight fight between Plaid and Reform and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lot of Labour supporters expected their own party to be hammered and voted tactically.
…no one expected us to do well, so ‘vote LD to stop Reform’ didn’t work. People thought it would be too risky/a wasted vote. So another self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m a Lib Dem party member!, but even I wondered for a while if I should lend Plaid my vote, purely to ‘stop Reform’.
Sorry, Jack, but Scotland has used a form of proportional representation since 1999 – it is called the Additional Member System and has 73 MSPs elected by FPTP in constituencies and then 56 additional members allocated by corrective PR using the D’Hondt system.
@Joan Summers is correct – the Scottish system is considered a proportional system, even if it can be distorted at times.
Also, all Scottish councils have been elected by Single Transferable Vote since 2007.
@joan summers I’m sorry, Joan, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to call you out on a technicality there – the additional member system, much like Wales’ former mixed member system, is classed as a “partially proportional system” as it still uses FPTP. So in terms of national elections, Wales is still first country in GB to use a fully proportional system. But Keith is correct on the council elections!
Might it help the L. D. Party in Wales if it were to clearly/boldly address the socio-economic harms done to the nations and areas of the U. K. beyond London+ ?
These are a consequence of Austerity/Neoliberal policies and practices which have and do concentrate wealth for the benefit of the wealthy and where they live.
As Austerity/Neoliberalism, destabilises society and results in chronically underfed children, as is presented in the attached article, its replacement matters.
How can the L. D. Party gain power without headlining socio-economic matters and theories and the harms that Neoliberalism brings?S
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/05/17/why-inheritance-tax-proves-britain-is-grotesquely-unequal/
@Jack Meredith
The reality is that the only voting system that can be classed as fully proportional is one where seats are allocated, directly related to percentage of the vote, in a single constituency. Israel would be a country that uses such a method though they only allow seats to be allocated to parties gaining 3.25% of the vote which distorts proportionality. The system used in Wales divides the country into 16 constituencies that only elect 6 each and the D’Hondt method in these circumstances distorts the overall election results to favour larger parties. This was shown earlier this month when Plaid Cymru won 45% of the seats on just 35% of the vote. On the same day in Scotland, the SNP, under the Additional Member System, won 45% of the vote on 38% of the vote…arguably a more proportional outcome.
@ Joan Summers I don’t want a protracted debate about PR systems which with constitutional amendments is some Liberal activists idea of heaven. Our friends in the ERS have prepared a detailed analysis of the comparative proportionality of the Welsh election results. If there had been 6 constituencies of 16 seats the result would have been far more proportional even under d’Hondt.
https://electoral-reform.org.uk/how-wales-voted-in-the-2026-senedd-election/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ers-email&utm_campaign=blog-roundup&utm_content=ERS+News+-+16+May+2026+-+Wales+-+%5Bcc%3A+6537+%3A+ERS+Members%5D
We needed a clear and simple unique selling point (USP), which could be projected everywhere from TV debates to parting words on the doorstep. It would answer the question – in a crowded field – why vote Lib Dem? It would be even more effective if supported by a narrative. Our manifesto needed costings which could pass the credibility test. All this needed putting together months before the election, giving time to get it though to the maximum number of voters. Let’s start with preparing for next year’s local elections and build from there.
@ Jack Meredith you make a balanced and realistic assessment. We were always told that British elections, as well as those in Britain, are won from the centre ground. As a centrist liberal in the nearly 50 years of voting I have always been surprised how much of both the Conservative and Labour manifestos with which I agreed. However in this election for the first time despite a proliferation of Parties nobody wanted my vote. There were 2 parties on the right and 4 on the left. There were 2 pro independence parties and 4 unionist. None of them produced detailed costings and only the Labour Party conjured up some figures in the last week of the campaign. Nobody supported HOME RULE within the United Kingdom which is the opposite of independence from the United Kingdom. From what I saw of Plaid Cymru’s successful campaign it was entirely based on stopping Reform which under a PR system is at best disingenuous. The Welsh Liberal Democrats have 4 years to learn how to campaign in a PR election. But only 50 weeks for the local government elections when all 1200 unitary authority seats in Wales are up for election. If there isn’t a sea change and swiftly the faint gold dots of 60 seats won in 2022 will be thinned further.
That’s a useful link, @Gwyn Williams, thanks. Does anyone know, how far off were the Lib Dems in winning the sixth seat in the other 15 constituencies?
Wales needs a strong Welsh Lib Dem party but this time it tried to attract voters by stopping independence (not happening this cycle), beating Reform (clearly the voters thought Plaid would be a better bet) and a manifesto where the best ideas could also be found in others plus more.
The vote share in what was then Assembly and now Senedd elections has gone down every year since 2007. It would be wrong to assess based too much on just the recent past. I don’t really understand why more isn’t being made about what Lib Dems did for education when being key in implementing the recent changes. Were the results so bad that we don’t want to talk about them? If not, voters need to know what can happen with a Lib Dem in office.
Stopping independence without speaking equally loudly about desires for an alternative suggests happiness with current model, but I don’t think any voter in Wales is. Just a few thoughts to share today.
The problem we face as Lib Dems in Wales is that Liberal Democracy is not first choice for a large enough proportion of the Welsh population to make a Lib Dem electable by almost any proportional voting system. Outside the party, to those who know our party’s basic philosophy it comes down to “Well, Liberal Democracy is a nice idea, but in general aren’t we free enough already?”
People who know life is complex and seek to balance different values, inevitably find it almost impossible to develop a clear simple rallying cry to be heard when the comforting lies of populism are strong. So instead of being heard we have to do things to get noticed – preferably by doing good stuff on the council even before we get elected. In 2024, stunts worked better than anything since Paddy. Before that it was probably the emergence of the SDP and before that Jeremy Thorpe’s hovercraft (maybe).