ROUGHLY seven months remain until what could be a historic election in Wales — one that could see Labour’s electoral hegemony come to an end.

For decades, Labour has dominated Welsh electoral politics, but today that dominance looks increasingly fragile. What emerges in its place will shape the nation’s future, and Plaid Cymru is working tirelessly to take its hopeful message to the people of Wales and to ensure that a Plaid-led government brings about a new kind of politics — one where the actions of government are felt not as interference or micromanaging, but as a positive force that improves the material conditions people’s lives.

Plaid Cymru offers an alternative to the anaemic managerialism that has come to define Labour — a politics that has lost its moral imagination and settled for maintaining the machinery of power rather than using it as a vehicle for transformation.

Reconnecting politics with the people it is meant to serve and proving that government can once again be a force for genuine change will be at the heart of that alternative.

There’s no denying it: Labour is faltering. As if tethering itself to a sclerotic way of doing politics and the neoliberal consensus weren’t bad enough, it’s also tying itself in knots over child poverty, the Crown Estate and steel. It’s little wonder that public trust is evaporating and the right — reconfigured and resurgent — is capitalising on the discontent sown by governments past and present.

If Rachel Reeves was right about anything in her “securonomics” speech, it was that we are at a turning point in our politics. Wales, nestled somewhere in all this, is also crying out for a new economic and political paradigm.

After being told time and time again to wait, to be patient, that a future British Labour government would pay dividends for Wales, ours is a country frayed by austerity and precarity, and a palpable sense of anger has built up as a result of broken promises.

Now, over a year since the general election, where are we? Household energy bills are expected to rise yet again ahead of winter, despite Keir Starmer’s promise to cut them; private-sector rents in Wales are among the highest in Britain, yet the Welsh government refuses to entertain rent controls; child poverty is projected to rise in Wales from 32.3 per cent in January 2025 to 34.4 per cent by 2029, yet families in Wales are pushed deeper into poverty by the two-child benefit cap; and primary steelmaking has been left to wither in Port Talbot.

Consecutive polls are forecasting a seismic shift. Collapse in support for Labour demonstrates that people want a change after 26 years of Labour in power.

The disillusionment born of years of stagnation demands a bold alternative, one that rids the blight of poverty from our communities by building and retaining wealth; that provides well-paying and fulfilling jobs; and one that improves the quality of people’s lives. Achieving that vision means reversing decades of managed decline.

By every major metric, Wales has and continues to underperform economically. Crucially, we suffer from an “ownership gap.” All of which Plaid Cymru’s new economic plan, Making Wales Work, will look to address.

Simply put, we do not own enough of our own resources, institutions or businesses to begin to turn the economic tide. This is reflected in the prevalence of low-wage, low-skilled jobs; low rates of productivity; stagnating living standards and the decline of town and city centres.

Crucially, it sees too little of Wales’s wealth recycled in and put to work for the benefit of Wales’s communities, and too much drained away in corporate profits to businesses headquartered elsewhere.

To change this, we must take ownership — literally — of our economy. That means keeping more Welsh businesses headquartered here, supporting small, independent businesses through changes to the business rates system and ensuring that the wealth created here stays here, circulating within our communities rather than flowing out of them.

All too often, successful home-grown businesses are sold off to outside interests when founders retire, erasing decades of local value and connection. Plaid Cymru will make it an economic priority to help these companies remain rooted in Wales by supporting ownership transitions, employee buyouts and succession planning that keeps control local.

As the historic home of the co-operative movement, we need to embrace and promote social, community-led and co-operative businesses to build the local economy.

With so many successful examples of communities taking their economic destiny into their own hands, a Plaid Cymru government will build on that by further championing community-led co-operatives and social enterprises, creating a dedicated fund for co-operative and community-led development, ensuring that shared and employee ownership are given the chance to flourish on a par with other business models.

Moreover, a Plaid Cymru government would pursue devolution of the Crown Estate with the firmness and resolve that this deserves to develop Wales’s offshore renewables for the benefit of our communities. We would seek to empower communities through local energy ownership and conduct a national skills audit to align training with future economic needs.

In 2026, we have the chance to shape a new future for Wales — one built on fairness, dignity and self-belief. We can build an economy that is not done to us, but by us and for us. Real change is possible with a Plaid Cymru government next May.

Luke Fletcher is a Plaid Cymru member of the Senedd for the region of South Wales West and its economy spokesperson.