Welsh first minister: ‘Farage doesn’t understand the first thing about Wales’
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Eluned Morgan, first finister of Wales and leader of Welsh Labour, tells The News Agents why the party will never work with Reform UK, and why Nigel Farage’s plans to restart the Welsh coal industry isn’t welcome by officials or voters.
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In brief…
- With Reform UK rising in Welsh polls ahead of the 2026 election in Wales, first minister Eluned Morgan criticises the party for its “determination to divide” and its leader’s lack of insight into the country and its population.
- She says Keir Starmer’s Labour government has focused too much on the economy and not on the party’s core politics, resulting in a disproportionate impact on Wales’s aging population.
- She remains confident of Welsh Labour’s success in 2026, saying that it would be a “risk” for the people of Wales to elect any other party.
What’s the story?
Since 1922, Welsh Labour has received more votes than any other party in Wales at every election, giving it the longest winning streak of any political party in the world.
But recent polling shows it now only holds an extremely narrow lead over rivals Reform UK and Plaid Cymru – with some polls suggesting it now places behind these parties in voter intentions, ahead of the 2026 Welsh election.
Eluned Morgan, first minister of Wales since 2024, tells The News Agents that although Welsh Labour has a long history of working in tandem with other parties in Wales, it will refuse to work in collaboration or coalition with Reform or Nigel Farage.
“Despite the fact that we've been the biggest party, we've never actually had an overall majority, so we're used to working together,” she says in an interview with Lewis Goodall in the Welsh Senedd.
“We will definitely not be working with Reform. That's out of the question.”
With Reform rising in Welsh polls, as it has across all of the UK, Nigel Farage recently spoke of his grand plan to revitalise the country – to reopen the Welsh coal mines. This was not welcomed by Welsh Labour, Morgan or many people in Wales.
“I don't think Nigel Farage understands the first thing about Wales,” Morgan says.
“It was fascinating to see him rock up here a few weeks ago saying he's going to reopen the pits, which shocked a lot of people.
“I don't think there's many people who want their grandchildren to go back down the pits, or indeed to see opencast mining in Wales.”
Morgan adds that other than the attempt to revive Wales’ coal industry, which has been shut down since 2008, she has no idea what Reform would bring to the country.
“The only ideas we know are ideas from the UK, including the suggestion that they're going to introduce an insurance approach to the NHS, and I think that would worry people in Wales,” she says.
If this approach was introduced under Reform leadership, this could end Wales' free prescriptions, which could result in many people being unable to afford vital medicines.
“Not being able to afford your medicine is actually fairly dangerous, but I think the real danger [of Reform] is to community cohesion, and that's what worries me. It's a party that is determined to divide.”
'Gaza is a huge concern for people in Wales'
Can Starmer’s Labour help support Wales’s aging population?
Wales has a population of 3 million, with a disproportionately high proportion of that number being over 60. To support these people, alongside free prescriptions, bus travel is free for over 65s, there is a £100 care cap for domiciliary care and it offers the living wage to care workers.
"Clearly we are challenged in some areas, but we do have a demographically older population, and an older population goes with a sicker population,” Morgan says.
“So yes, we're always going to be more challenged when it comes to how we manage health challenges, for example."
And this older population has been hit harder by some of the systems put in place by Keir Starmer's Labour government – such as the cut to the winter fuel payments (which was recently reversed) and controversial welfare reforms.
She says Starmer, and chancellor Rachel Reeves have focused too much on stabilising the UK economy, and forgotten the core of Labour politics.
"I get what they're doing. They recognise that if you don't get the economy on track, that you can't invest in the public services in the way that, as a socialist, you are keen to do.
“You have to make sure that people understand that narrative."
Should Labour tax the rich?
With next year's Welsh election on her mind, Morgan says she would welcome campaign support from Starmer, but wants "firm examples" of how working with the UK Labour Party would work for the benefit of Wales to grow a future relationship between the two leaders.
"We've seen additional funding for rail that we've been asking for years and years and years. It's a step in the right direction.
“We're definitely getting more than we got out of the Conservatives."
Is the right direction a wealth tax? Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock recently suggested that Brits with earnings or assets of over £10 million should be taxed more, instead of taking from disabled people, and Morgan says she supports this notion.
"I'm on record as saying that I would like the people with the broader shoulders to shoulder more of the burden. So I'm a big fan,” Morgan continues.
"In Wales we don't have these massive disparities of wealth, because we don't have people in that £10 million bracket that Neil Kinnock is talking about."
Additionally, she is critical of Labour's refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap, and internationally says that Israel's ongoing bombardment of people in Gaza has been a "disproportionate response" to the October 7 attack, criticising the state for blocking international agencies and journalists from getting inside the besieged country.
‘Don’t tell people in Wales how to run their lives’
The daughter of a vicar from a council estate just outside Cardiff, Morgan says it is Wales' industrial past that has kept it a Labour stronghold for decades, despite other parts of the UK having a more turbulent relationship with the party in recent years, and believes it’s a sense of community which stands Welsh people apart from other nations in the UK.
"We are more comfortable when we're reflecting those community values, of solidarity, of equality, of the kind of things that have held our communities together for many years,” she says.
And it’s this sense of community, and understanding of Welsh people and their needs, that keeps her confident of Welsh Labour’s chances to continue its unbroken run into the 2026 Welsh election and beyond.
“We're not anti-English in Wales, but what we do object to is people coming in here and telling us how to run our lives when they've got no sense of authority or stake here telling us what to do,” she adds.
“When people take a breath and they look at what's at stake, I think that there's a real possibility that they will understand that it is a huge risk to go with other parties.”
Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.
