Wales Is Miles Away, But Politically It Is Just Up the Road From the West Midlands

Wales is being measured. And what it is showing is the squeezing of Labour and the Conservatives. The Midlands are spooky similar..!!

There is a comfortable fiction in British politics that Wales is somehow separate. Devolved, different, culturally distinct, and ultimately insulated from what happens in England. It is a fiction that suits London commentators and Westminster parties alike.

It is also wrong.

Wales matters because it is one of the few parts of the UK that still gets polled properly. Senedd (the Welsh Parliament) elections attract money, attention, and regular professional polling. English local government does not, particularly not in places like the West Midlands, where councils govern millions of people and billions of pounds of services, yet head into elections with barely a scrap of serious public data.

That matters, because when voters stop behaving out of habit, you only see it early if someone is bothering to measure it.

Wales is being measured. And what it is showing is not a niche Welsh moment, but a structural shift: the collapse of habitual voting, the squeezing of Labour and the Conservatives, and the rise of protest as an organising force.

The West Midlands should be paying attention.

Wales as a barometer, not a blueprint

The mistake is to treat Wales as a mirror of England. It is not. Wales has Plaid Cymru, a rooted national party that can absorb large amounts of anti-establishment energy without that energy immediately translating into a wholesale rejection of devolved government itself.

England has no equivalent.

So when the same mood crosses the Severn, it behaves differently. It fragments, or it consolidates around whichever political vehicle looks most capable of carrying anger at scale.

That distinction is crucial. The value of Wales is not that it predicts exact outcomes in Birmingham, Dudley or Walsall. The value is that it shows pressure building before it becomes impossible to ignore.

Think of Wales as the upstream gauge. The West Midlands sits further down the political river.

Why machinery now matters more than ideology

Local elections are not won on ideology alone. They are won on presence, slate coverage, discipline, and message clarity.

This is where much of the commentary goes wrong.

The Greens and the Liberal Democrats can, and do, win individual wards through graft, local reputation, and targeted campaigning. They have dedicated councillors and committed activists. What they do not have, across the West Midlands as a whole, is the machinery to absorb a region-wide protest vote.

Reform UK is explicitly trying to build exactly that. All the indicators suggest it intends to stand candidates in every West Midlands council seat. In a local election, that is not cosmetic. It is decisive.

When voters want to send a message, they need a box to tick.

That is why Wales is such a useful indicator. It shows what happens when voters decide the old options no longer deserve automatic loyalty. In England, that decision has fewer outlets, and one of them is far better organised than the rest.

Optics, symbolism, and the danger zone

Local government used to reward visible competence above all else. It still does, but it now also punishes perceived cultural disconnection, sometimes brutally and sometimes unfairly.

This is where symbolism becomes politically dangerous.

In Birmingham, the Greens hold just two council seats. They do not control the council, they do not lead the administration, and they do not set the budget. Birmingham remains a Labour-run authority, albeit a badly weakened one.

But visibility matters as much as power.

Cllr Julian Pritchard, the Green councillor for Druids Heath, is widely regarded as a hardworking local representative. He took the ward from Labour through persistence and local presence. That matters, and it should be said plainly.

But politics no longer operates in sealed local compartments.

Being publicly named in a petition expressing concern about the erection of flags on lamp posts may play neutrally, or even positively, in some parts of the city. In Druids Heath, it risks landing very differently. Not because voters are hostile or unsophisticated, but because it can be framed as symbolic politics disconnected from everyday pressures.

Reform will frame it that way. They will not worry about nuance or intent. They will worry about whether the image sticks.

This is not a moral judgement. It is an electoral reality. Wales shows how quickly that kind of framing can bite once voters decide symbolism matters more than managerial competence.

Birmingham: fragmentation, not conquest

Birmingham is not about to “go Reform”. Anyone saying that is confusing disruption with takeover.

Labour still controls the council, but its authority is badly weakened by financial collapse, service cuts, and external oversight. Trust is thin. Patience is thinner.

The real story is fragmentation.

Reform does not need to win Birmingham. It needs to win some outer wards, places like Erdington, Stockland Green, Kingstanding, and parts of Hodge Hill, where loyalty has frayed and anger is raw. Greens and Lib Dems can also pick up pockets, but selectively.

If that happens, Labour’s grip loosens further, governance becomes harder, and every budget becomes a negotiation. That is Wales-style politics translated into English local government.

After May 2026, Reform may well be charge of Birmingham, yet I feel, in coalition with the remaining Tories.

Solihull: the fault line beneath the stereotype

Solihull is often caricatured as leafy and safely Conservative. That picture is badly out of date.

The borough contains two political realities. The south, Solihull town, Knowle, Dorridge, Shirley West, remains relatively affluent and small-c conservative. The north, Castle Bromwich, Kingshurst and Fordbridge, Smith’s Wood, Chelmsley Wood, looks and feels very different.

In these northern wards, Labour loyalty has eroded and Conservative credibility is fragile. Reform’s message can land if candidates are visible and disciplined.

Solihull does not need to “turn Reform” to produce a dramatic result. It only needs Conservative control to fracture. A handful of Reform gains in the north could be enough to remove a working majority. That is Wales-style disruption: not a landslide, but the collapse of predictability.

Reform will be a significant political group I feel in Solihull, without direct power, yet some significance.

Walsall: the clearest Reform runway

If one council looks most open to a Reform breakthrough, it is Walsall.

Weak party loyalty, long-running dissatisfaction, and a blunt political culture make it fertile ground. Reform has already shown it can convert votes into seats locally. If it fields a full slate and runs a competent operation, Walsall could deliver the night’s most dramatic story.

That does not necessarily mean outright control. It means Reform becoming the dominant bloc, shaping the agenda, and deciding who governs.

Dudley and Sandwell: the Black Country engine room

Dudley and Sandwell are where the two-party system has been quietly decaying for years.

Voters here have already cycled through Labour and Conservative control and are unconvinced by both. These councils are primed for protest politics that feels muscular rather than managerial.

In Dudley, already volatile, Reform can quickly become a kingmaker. In Sandwell, historically Labour-dominated, the danger is sudden, unexpected losses that change the internal maths even if Labour remains the largest party.

This is where Reform’s “candidate everywhere” strategy really matters. Even modest vote shares can translate into real power if opponents split and turnout softens.

Yet with even a slight Reform surge both Dudley and Sandwell could well be Reform majority councils.

Wolverhampton: not immune, but not collapsing

Wolverhampton remains Labour-dominated and is not on the brink of collapse. But it would be complacent to treat it as immune.

The city shares many of the same pressures as Sandwell and Dudley: stretched services, economic frustration, and a sense that politics happens elsewhere. Reform can make inroads here, particularly in wards where Labour loyalty is thinner than the headline numbers suggest.

The May story in Wolverhampton is not about control. It is about whether Reform establishes a foothold that turns future elections into something much less predictable. For Reform its theres’s to loose.

Coventry: mixed signals and real ceilings

Coventry shows the limits of any simple wave theory.

Labour remains resilient in parts of the city with strong organisational roots. But even here, pressure is visible. Reform can be competitive in the east and outer areas. Greens and Lib Dems can also make selective gains.

Protest energy does not flatten everything. It breaks through where conditions allow it and stalls where local identity remains strong. Wales does not contradict this. It explains it.

The Birmingham Knife Edge

So Birmingham could well hold the key to Reform dominance in the West Midlands. If they manage to become the main party, in the secound City, they could well have control of the West Midlands. Ready and able therefore to challenge for the crown of the Mayor of the West Midlands.

A late warning from Anglesey

If anyone was tempted to read the Welsh polling as a settled story, a council by-election last week offered a sharp correction.

In Ynys Gybi on Ynys Môn, Reform UK overturned Plaid Cymru in a ward Plaid assumed was safe. Reform took 603 votes, 43.9 per cent. Plaid trailed on 343. Labour managed 171, with Greens and Conservatives further back.

The ward sits within the Senedd constituency of Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth. No one expected it.

Anglesey has its own dynamics, including an older, incomer-heavy electorate. But that is precisely the point. When protest politics is organised and on the ballot, it can break through even where identity and habit are meant to hold.

For Plaid, it is a warning. For the West Midlands, it is a preview.

If Reform can land a blow like that in north Wales, councils in the Midlands that assume they are insulated by history, loyalty, or stereotype should think again. This by-election result makes me think and question is Reform underestimated in the polling?

What Wales is really telling us

The lesson from Wales is not that one party replaces another cleanly. It is that voters stop behaving out of habit.

When that happens, councils fragment, governance becomes harder, and authority erodes. In Wales, Plaid absorbs much of that energy. In the West Midlands, Reform is best placed to do so, not because it is universally loved, but because it is organised, visible, and prepared.

The Greens and Lib Dems will still win seats. Good councillors will still hold ground. But they cannot absorb a region-wide protest vote on their own.

Reform can.

May is not about winners, it is about damage

The mistake is to frame May as a question of who “wins” the West Midlands. That misses the point.

May is about whether councils emerge intact, governable, and stable. Wales shows what happens when voters withdraw consent from the old order. The West Midlands is next in line, and this time, the anger has somewhere organised to go.

Wales is miles away. Politically, it is just up the road.