{"id":510076,"date":"2025-10-18T18:49:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/510076\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T18:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T18:49:17","slug":"keir-starmer-faces-by-election-nightmare-as-reform-uk-storms-heartland-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/510076\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer faces by-election nightmare as Reform UK storms heartland | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reform UK hopes to win a historic victory this week and snatch a heartland constituency away from Labour. Caerphilly<\/a> has voted Labour in every election to Westminster since 1918 but polling suggests Nigel Farage<\/a>\u2019s party has a slight lead over pro-independence Plaid Cymru ahead of Thursday\u2019s Welsh Parliament by-election.<\/p>\n

A Reform win<\/a> would intensify fears in Labour circles that Sir Keir Starmer<\/a> is on course for humiliation in May\u2019s mega-elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and councils across England.<\/p>\n

For Reform, the by-election is an opportunity to test the success of efforts to bring a new degree of professionalism to its campaigning machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Candidate Ll\u0177r Powell, 30, has high hopes Reform will seize control of the Welsh Parliament \u2013 also known as the Senedd \u2013 in May.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cOur goal is to take control of the Welsh Government \u2013 not just win the largest number of seats. And we want to use those levers of power to make the lives of the people of Wales better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Powell said getting supporters \u2013 some of whom he said have been disillusioned with long-established parties and not voted for many years \u2013 to cast their ballot on the day is a key challenge. But he said he had noticed a change in the nature of support.<\/p>\n

Local voters are no longer lending their vote to Reform because they are angry with Labour, he claimed. Rather, they are now proud to identify with the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Reform is now the major party in Wales,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A senior Welsh Labour figure described the situation as a \u201c****storm,\u201d saying: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to look like a insurgent, radical party when you\u2019ve been in power for Westminster for 15 months [and in] the Welsh Senedd for 26 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senior source blasted Labour in the Welsh Parliament for an \u201cobsession with constitutional reform,\u201d saying: \u201cThey forgot about education, they forgot about health, to a certain extent they forgot about transport… They were more interested in a power-grab than they were in actually getting down and delivering and the problem is now that the chickens are coming home to roost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s Mr Powell is urging people who have abandoned Labour to make the trip to the polling station.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually getting out there and voting on the day that matters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Survation poll put Reform in first place in the constituency with 42% support, ahead of Plaid Cymru (38%) and Labour (12%).<\/p>\n

Mr Powell said he wanted Wales to become the first \u201ccommon sense\u201d nation under a Reform Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, winning the next Senedd elections is a priority and taking control of the Government must be our goal, and nothing else matters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reform already has one Member of Senedd, Laura Anne Jones, who defected from the Conservatives<\/a>. But a win in Caerphilly would encourage the party to believe it can win hard-fought contests in a nation where Labour has been the biggest party in every Westminster and Senedd election for more than a century.<\/p>\n

Mr Powell batted away the question of whether he would like to be the first non-Labour First Minister<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the priority here in Wales for us is building a team,\u201d he said. \u201cOne person can\u2019t fix Wales; it\u2019s going to be a cabinet that we have to collect together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Farage, he said, commanded respect on the doorsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if they don\u2019t agree with something he\u2019s saying, they believe that he believes it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what other politicians don\u2019t have \u2013 he\u2019s very authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform UK hopes to win a historic victory this week and snatch a heartland constituency away from Labour.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[87182,166874,807,12,386,16,15,1764,166873],"class_list":{"0":"post-510076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-by-election","10":"tag-caerphilly-constituency","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-reform-uk","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales","17":"tag-welsh-parliament-by-election"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115396671330236347","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}