UNIONS and party activists today urge this weekend’s Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno to make a decisive move to the left to head off the threat of Reform UK and Plaid Cymru.

Recent opinion polling has shown support for Welsh Labour slumping to 18 per cent, and threatening the party with third place.

If the polling is correct, First Minister Eluned Morgan is under threat of losing her place as a Senedd member.

Unison Cymru is calling on the Welsh government to negotiate with Westminster politicians to secure a funding settlement based on fairness and a true assessment of need.

Unison’s Welsh secretary Jess Turner said: “When local public services are dismantled following years of austerity, a sense of community disappears as well. 

“People no longer think governments and councils are on their side. That’s fertile ground for Reform UK.”

Welsh Labour Grassroots (WLG) is calling on the party to tack leftwards as the polls show Plaid Cymru taking votes from Labour.

WLG co-chairwoman Jackie Owen said: “Former First Minister Mark Drakeford won his leadership on the basis that Welsh Labour perform better when it is not outflanked from the left.”

The left group said the Westminster Labour government’s planned benefit cuts will have a disproportionately negative impact on Wales. 

“The old mantra that Wales is proportionally older, sicker, and poorer means that 6.1 per cent of the population directly receive disability benefits,” Ms Owen said.

The socialist group said that Starmer’s refusal to abolish the two-child cap, and other attacks on the working class, mean the traditional link to Labour in Wales has been cut and Plaid Cymru are benefiting.