The China Mail - In Wales, UK Labour Party loses grip on storied heartland

But that is set to end in crunch polls Thursday as impatient Britons abandon their old political loyalties for anti-establishment parties amid persistent cost of living pressures.

A Labour defeat in the country of three million people will be a major indictment of lacklustre UK leader Keir Starmer's two-year-old premiership and likely amplify calls for his resignation.

"I feel very sad that I'm not voting Labour this time," said 59-year-old Ross Mumford, explaining he had always supported the centre-left party, just like his father and grandfather.

"It's been a part of the family but it's coming to an end this year," the delivery driver told AFP outside the Welsh parliament in the capital Cardiff.

Wales, with its strong working-class roots and deep sense of community, has been woven into the fabric of Labour since the party was founded in 1900.

The party's first leader, Keir Hardie, represented a constituency in the country's industrial South Valleys, while Welshman Aneurin Bevan spearheaded the founding of the NHS in 1948.

Labour has led Wales' devolved government -- whose powers include running health, education and transport -- since the inception of the parliament, called the Senedd, in 1999.

Polls widely predict that 27-year-run will finish when voters head to the polls on May 7, although a new voting system means who will triumph instead is uncertain.

- 'Upset' -

Surveys show Labour trailing the hard-right Reform UK party and progressive Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, mirroring a UK-wide squeeze of Britain's ruling party from both ends of the political spectrum.

Mumford thinks Starmer has "lied through his teeth" in a scandal over sacked US envoy Peter Mandelson. He will vote Reform, believing firebrand leader Nigel Farage is a straight-talker.

"Let's give them a try. What have we got to lose?" he said, a common refrain among voters unhappy with how Labour has governed the UK since July 2024 following 14 years of Conservative rule.

Hope Porter, 35, another previous Labour voter told AFP she will likely cast her ballot for the left-wing Greens. She is angry at Starmer's stance on the Gaza war.

"They're Tories in red at this point. I don't think they are actually for working class people anymore," the artist said, enjoying an evening stroll outside the Senedd.

In Cardiff city centre, sitting near a statue of ex-Labour MP Bevan, 83-year-old Sue Jenkins said she isn't ready to give up on Labour yet.

The retiree thinks Starmer "could do better" but feels he has done well to stand up to President Donald Trump over the US and Israel conflict.

"If Labour don't get in, I'll be very upset," Jenkins told AFP.

Labour candidate Huw Thomas insists one party will find it difficult to win a majority, meaning "it's all to play for".

"The narrative that this is the end of the Labour Party in Wales, I don't think that's a given," he told AFP.

Twenty-three miles (37 kilometres) north in Merthyr Tydfil -- where Hardie was an MP -- half a dozen Reform volunteers hand out fliers from under a gazebo.

Several passing drivers sound their horns in support, receiving thumbs up from the canvassers, although one woman shouts "racists" at the group.

Unemployment and deprivation are the main issues in the post-industrial town once famous for its coal mining and ironworks, says candidate David Hughes.

"People are losing hope," the 59-year-old told AFP.

- 'Enormous problems' -

Volunteer Robert Clarke, 69, likes Reform's pledge to scrap net zero energy targets -- he's "not a great fan" of wind turbines on Wales' rolling hills -- and cut irregular immigration.

"Unless we change the direction this country is taking, I feel my grandchildren will not have a country," he told AFP.

In the nearby picturesque town of Pontypridd, Plaid Cymru campaigners buoyantly knock on doors, sensing victory in another traditional Labour heartland.

"We're definitely picking up disaffected voters," candidate Heledd Fychan told AFP, saying people felt "betrayed" by Labour's moves to remove heating subsidies from the elderly.

Back in Cardiff, 65-year-old retired teacher Ceri James says he will vote for Plaid because of their "positive" messaging.

Speculation is rife in Westminster that losing Wales could be the moment restless Labour MPs decide to try to oust Starmer as leader.

Defeat "will pose enormous problems for the party," politics expert Laura McAllister of Cardiff University told AFP.

B.Clarke--ThChM