Plaid Cymru

After the 2021 Senedd election produced no overall majority, Plaid entered a co-operation agreement with Labour — short of a formal coalition — to deliver a programme of shared policy commitments. This was the first such arrangement between the two parties and marked a strategic shift for Plaid toward demonstrating governing competence.

The co-operation agreement committed Labour and Plaid to work together on 46 policy areas including universal free school meals for primary children, expanding childcare, Senedd reform to 96 members, and establishing the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales. For Plaid, the agreement served a dual purpose: delivering tangible policy wins that could be credited to the party (particularly free school meals, which delivered over 4 million additional meals by 2023), and embedding the constitutional question into the machinery of government through the Commission. The agreement demonstrated that Plaid could operate constructively within devolution while simultaneously making the case for going beyond it. Its premature termination in March 2024 over the Gething donation controversy freed Plaid to campaign independently for 2026.

Plaid fought the 2024 general election with a focus on economic fairness for Wales, framing the election as an opportunity to demand structural changes to the devolution settlement regardless of which party held power at Westminster.

The manifesto pledged to 'fight every day' for the £4 billion Plaid calculated Wales was owed from HS2 consequential funding, to demand a 'fair funding system based around needs, not population,' and to push for devolution of the Crown Estate and redress of economic unfairness through windfall taxes. The party explicitly promised to 'protect and strengthen the devolution settlement following attempts from the London parties to undermine Wales' self-government.' Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth positioned these demands as prerequisites for any Welsh engagement with the UK Government, regardless of its political colour. While Plaid didn't gain Westminster seats, the manifesto established the policy framework that would be carried forward into the 2026 Senedd campaign — where it was better positioned to implement these demands from government.

The conference served as Plaid's de facto election launch, with the party leading most polls for the first time in its history. The expanded Senedd (96 seats) and new proportional representation system meant Plaid had a realistic path to becoming the largest party and leading a government.

Plaid entered the election campaign positioned as the party of change after 27 years of Labour governance, with a platform that combined pro-devolution constitutional reform with progressive domestic policy. The party committed to publishing a green paper on the path to independence, establishing a national commission on Wales' future, and implementing the Constitutional Commission's ten recommendations in full. However, it explicitly ruled out an independence referendum in the next Senedd term, seeking to reassure moderate voters that a Plaid government would be stable and pragmatic. The conference saw Rhun ap Iorwerth frame the election as a binary choice between Plaid's progressive nationalism and Reform's populism, deliberately excluding Labour from the narrative as a spent force. With polls showing the first pro-independence majority in Senedd history was possible (Plaid plus Greens), the 2026 election was shaping up as the most constitutionally significant moment since the 1997 devolution referendum.