Resurgent Labour wins Welsh seats back from Tories

Labour has won back a string of Welsh seats from the Conservatives, as Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide election victory was confirmed.

The Tories were wiped out in Wales, with Welsh Secretary David TC Davies losing his seat, as well as the three former Welsh secretaries, Alun Cairns, Stephen Crabb and Simon Hart.

Another ousted Tory was Craig Williams, former aide to Rishi Sunak, who had party support withdrawn after admitting betting on the date of the election.

On a triumphant night for Labour, and a disastrous one for the Tories, Plaid Cymru celebrated winning both its target seats of Ynys Môn and Caerfyrddin from the Conservatives.

There was good news for the Liberal Democrats, who took back Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe seat from the Conservatives, removing Wales Office minister Fay Jones from parliament.

It means the Lib Dems have a Welsh MP for the first time since 2019.

Labour finished on 27 seats, up 9 on 2019, Plaid on four and the Lib Dems one.

Labour won back Bridgend, Monmouthshire and Wrexham and also took the new seats of Bangor Aberconwy, Clwyd North, Clwyd East, Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr and Mid and South Pembrokeshire from the Conservatives.

Labour held Swansea West, with a win for new candidate and Starmer ally Torsten Bell, widely seen as ripe for early promotion in the new government expected to take power on Friday.

Labour retained Gower, Pontypridd, Torfaen, Caerphilly, Newport East, Aberfan Maesteg, Rhondda and Ogmore and Cardiff South and Penarth.

The party also kept control of Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Cardiff West, Cardiff East, Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare and the Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney constituency.

Labour’s Kanishka Narayan became the first ethnic minority Welsh MP, in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Tories were reduced from 14 seats in Boris Johnson’s 2019 election victory to none under Rishi Sunak.

Labour, with the help of Plaid Cymru, saw the Tories fall to zero seats in Wales on Friday for the first time since 2001.

But Labour also saw its vote share fall to 37%, from 40.9%.

They have been badly damaged by the performance of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which split the right-wing vote and came second in a series of seats.

Plaid Cymru hugely increased its majority in Ceredigion Preseli and easily retained Dwyfor Meirionnydd, finishing the night on four seats.

A few hours earlier, Welsh secretary David TC Davies had anticipated losing his seat, as the exit poll suggested Labour will enjoy a majority of 170 when all the results are declared.

Mr Davies had represented Monmouth since 2005.

Mr Davies, whose seat is now called Monmouthshire after boundary changes, is the first Welsh secretary to lose his seat while in office since the post was created in 1964.

“I’ve had great support from the local association, but the fact is, people wanted a change,” he said. “That’s the way it goes in democracy.

“I’ll be the first to acknowledge there’s going to be a massive Labour victory and I certainly won’t be in Parliament at the end of the evening and I’ll put that on the record.”

He urged Conservatives to “stay calm” and not blame each other for expected poor result.

Sir Robert Buckland, Welsh secretary under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, became the first Conservative in the UK to lose his seat on the night, ousted in Swindon South by Labour’s Heidi Alexander.

The Llanelli-born Tory replaced Simon Hart in the Wales Office in 2022 in Mr Johnson’s government, and was kept in the post by Ms Truss.

Sir Robert said UK politics was at a “crossroads”, and asked “do we value those who work to bring people together” or “shrug our shoulders and accept that politics is a mere circus”.

He also criticised Rishi Sunak’s national service policy, which he said was “totally over-sold” to appeal to “a more populist base”.

“That’s a mistake, I’m fed up, the time has gone for cheap populism”.

Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said the exit poll, if correct, showed a “huge victory and huge vindication for Keir Starmer” for taking Labour from “our worst defeat since 1935, to this night”.

“Keir looked like he really enjoyed the campaign, he was confident and happy, and we went out there with a positive manifesto, and if the exit poll is right, it looks like people liked it,” she said.

The former Labour leader and ex-Islwyn MP Lord Kinnock told ITV News the Labour landslide was “the greatest comeback since Lazarus”.

Tory Senedd group leader Andrew RT Davies said he was “angry” about the party’s election campaign.

“I have no words that can describe my frustration at some points in the campaign,” he told the BBC Wales results programme.

Some of his fury was directed at Rishi Sunak’s decision to call the general election on 22 May.

“No one really understood why we were sitting here tonight instead of the autumn.”

He said that an autumn poll would have been difficult still, but the party needed the “best possible chance”.

“You’ll see my anger at the Welsh (Conservative) Party board meeting tomorrow,” he said, suggesting Tories had paid the price of “the shenanigans over the past five years”.

Reform candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, Oliver Lewis, strongly criticised the media for reporting on the behaviour of what he called “a few deviant candidates” in his party.

Responding to questions about Nigel Farage’s views on Vladimir Putin and allegations of racist comments by candidates, he said people “see through” the negative press “which institutions like the BBC give us”.

The “vast majority of our candidates are centrist and sensible,” he said.

Wales had 40 MPs in the last parliament but that drops to 32 seats at this election, following a review aimed at equalising the size of UK constituencies.

The Green party won four seats, and Anthony Slaughter, leader of the Wales Green Party and Green candidate for Cardiff South and Penarth, said he “will get double figures next time”.

He added that the party got 15 second places, one of which being Cardiff.

“The vote tonight has proven it, I’m very very confident we will get voted green representation in the Senedd.”

Ann Davies, the new Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin took the seat from Conservative chief whip Simon Hart – who finished third.

“I am delighted beyond words that we’ve won this,” she told BBC Radio Wales.

“Every party has a lot of work to do but this is a fantastic platform on which to build.”