ELUNED MORGAN’s big speech aimed to rally the faithful ahead of next year’s Senedd election and reach out to those Labour voters alienated by the Labour government in Westminster. Artful leaks beforehand claimed she would “call out Keir Starmer”, criticise Westminster’s welfare reforms, “put country before party”, and invite voters to join her on the “Welsh red way”.

LABOUR’S SUPPORT CRATERS

Instead, it was desperate stuff, revealing the depths of Labour’s desperation in Wales. Labour’s share of the Welsh vote in last July’s General Election fell, and the edges of that vote are vulnerable. Reform UK has surged in opinion polls, which suggest that Nigel Farage’s policy-free limited company is taking votes from Labour in Wales at a rate even higher than it is stealing them from the Welsh Conservatives. 

On the evening Baroness Morgan delivered her rallying call, a Barn Cymru/ITV poll revealed Labour’s support in Wales had fallen to an all-time low of 18% of those surveyed.

The opportunity existed for Baroness Morgan to do the unthinkable and set out once and for all how she would strike out from Keir Starmer’s unpopular Westminster government, stand up to it in the interest of Wales, and produce real changes in its approach to benefit Welsh voters. 

Then reality intervened. 

OLD LINES RE-USED

Even with devolution and the much-vaunted “partnership in power” at either end of the M4, the First Minister’s influence on Labour’s direction at the UK level is virtually non-existent.

Carefully leaked excerpts from her speech and remarks the First Minister made to a meeting of Labour’s Welsh constituency MPs stand revealed as the efforts of a struggling First Minister and an exhausted government to cling to power in Cardiff Bay.

Her message offered nothing concrete that was new, and nothing new that was concrete. Instead, Baroness Morgan leaned heavily on old Labour rhetoric that has echoed through decades of Welsh political life.

She framed Reform UK as a growing threat to Wales. She urged voters not to “gamble with our future” by backing Reform or Plaid Cymru, warning that a split on the left could open the door to right-wing populism. 

She did not seem to understand that the new electoral system Labour and Plaid Cymru imposed on Wales for 2026 reduced the scope for tactical voting and did away with the possibility of split votes, where you could vote for a candidate on the constituency list and a party on the regional one. 

That no longer exists. A vote cast will be a vote for a party and not an individual. A vote for Plaid Cymru, Labour, Reform UK, the Welsh Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, or the Green Party is a vote for that party alone.

“YOU’LL NEVER TAKE OUR WIND!”

Even her efforts to connect present-day grievances with long-standing injustices came across as faintly ridiculous.

“We saw them take our coal,” Eluned Morgan said in her Braveheart moment.”We saw them take our water. We will not let them take our wind”.

Worse, her next line unwittingly referenced fictional Prime Minister Jim Hacker’s efforts to save the British sausage from EU food standards: “Not this time. Not on my watch.” At least she avoided saying “here I stand, I can do no other.”

The problem with Baroness Morgan’s approach is that it doesn’t allow her to address, or even acknowledge, the sources of voters’ dissatisfaction with Labour’s record in the Welsh Government.

According to the First Minister, “The Welsh NHS is not a failing system in need of rescue. It’s a public service that works.”

Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. It’s worth remembering that the Welsh Government denies the existence of a crisis in the Welsh NHS, despite doctors, nurses, clinicians, and reviews commissioned by it highlighting its extent.

And, because Eluned Morgan cannot acknowledge that voters might have some reason to be unhappy, it is hard for her to explain how she intends to address their concerns. Instead of addressing voters’ concerns, she spoke to the faithful as though voters were incidental to democracy.

THE POLICY VACUUM

Vacuous phrases, such as “Time for change isn’t just a slogan. It’s a demand,” added nothing to her message. She might come to reflect that “time for change” after being in power for a quarter of a century is precisely the sloganeering Labour in Wales might want to avoid.

Again, the First Minister spoke to the metropolitan media and the magic circle bounded by the Cardiff Ring Road, saying, “This is our Wales. Not a Wales of division or decline—but of solidarity, fairness and progress.”

Tell that to farmers, steel workers, the tourist industry, or the defence firms that the Welsh Government prevents from seeking funding from the Development Bank of Wales. Try saying it to the growing number of children who grow up in poverty in Wales and their parents, whose experience is almost identical to their own.

Political opponents and analysts were quick to point out that Morgan’s speech repeated themes long used by her Labour predecessors, from Rhodri Morgan’s “clear red water” to Carwyn Jones’ defiant calls for fairness from Westminster.

THE SAME OLD SONG

“The problem isn’t the message—it’s that we’ve heard it all before,” one Labour insider told The Herald. “Solidarity, NHS, devolution, anti-Tory sentiment—it’s the same script we’ve used since 1999.”

Welsh Conservative MS Darren Millar called the speech “a last-ditch, desperate attempt to save the Labour Party’s bacon,” adding: “Labour has broken the Welsh NHS, broken our education system, and broken our economy.”

Despite a clear effort to contrast Labour’s values with those of Reform—portrayed as “cynical”, “dishonest”, and “dangerous”—Morgan offered few fresh policies. Instead, she cited well-known Labour achievements like free prescriptions and school meals, and highlighted past battles with Westminster over steel, coal, and infrastructure.

Even Morgan’s call for “mutual respect” with a UK Labour government sounded like a rerun of speeches by former First Ministers, all of whom have, at one time or another, promised to “stand up for Wales” against London.

There was also pointed criticism of UK Labour welfare proposals, with Morgan insisting: “We will call it out if UK Labour get it wrong for Wales.” However, it remained unclear whether this marked a meaningful policy divergence or pre-election positioning.

“I can’t get a GP appointment, my son’s school is underfunded, and our train line is a joke,” said Julie Morgan, a retail worker in Pembrokeshire (no relation). “I’ve voted Labour all my life, but I honestly don’t know what they stand for anymore.”

And the problem for Eluned Morgan is that, nebulous aspirations and slogans apart, she couldn’t explain that either.