Plaid Cymru’s David-v-Goliath strategy could hinder more than it helps

What does it take to build a political party?

There’s no one way — though some can be more successful than others. In the early 20th century, the Labour Party — the first true mass-movement party — grew from the ground up, strategically fielding candidates in areas conducive to its message, forging tactical alliances where it needed to, and building its strength around grassroots political and social organisations.

The journey from extra-parliamentary pressure group to prospective party of government was long, but once Labour reached its destination, it stayed there. The party’s roots run deep. Even at its lowest points in 1983, 2010, and 2015, it held on to the title of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

Insurgent parties have tried to take shortcuts to respectability — with mixed results.

Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party led by the charismatic Leanne Wood, tried one such shortcut last night. You might call it the “David-versus-Goliath” route: in which a lone party champion strikes at a seemingly invincible foe and scores a heroic victory, in the hope that in doing so they win legions of followers to their cause.

Wood aced this play in the Rhondda on Thursday, taking the seat with 51% of the vote and a 27% swing against Labour. The media screamed her shock win across the airways. In a flash, the story of the night in Wales changed from ‘Labour Holds Assembly’ to ‘Plaid wins big’ — even though this only held true for a single seat.

You see, the problem with the “David-versus-Goliath” route is that it is taken by small parties that are in a hurry to get big. They don’t have the financial resources, the legions of activists, or the traditional voter base necessary to tackle established parties across multiple fronts. So instead, they choose to make a splash by concentrating their efforts around their chosen champion — in Plaid’s case the party leader — getting them elected, and hoping their celebrity status brings more converts to the cause.

Sound familiar? George Galloway pulled off the same stunt in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. Caroline Lucas of the Greens did the same in 2010 in Brighton. Nigel Farage tried and failed the gambit in 2015 in Thanet.

For all the headlines these famous victories generate, for all the brief excitement that surrounds the triumphant David, they rarely translate to long lasting success for the champion’s host party.

Galloway’s Respect Party never put another MP into parliament. Lucas remains the only Green MP — and her party lost control of Brighton Council last year. And Farage? Well, his failure in Thanet cost him the leadership of UKIP — albeit only for a moment.

This is a problem for the parties concerned as the temporary boost in popularity often comes at the expense of more enduring electoral returns.

The Rhondda was Plaid Cymru’s moonshot. The party trailed Labour by 33.7% in 2011. Winning here was a fine achievement, yes, but at the same time Plaid failed to take Laneli, a constituency where they were only 0.3% of the vote behind Labour, and Aberconwy, where they were a mere 7.8% short of the Tories.

I am not privy to the distribution of campaign resources by Plaid, but I am pretty sure party grandees would have been happier had Wood secured two gains rather than one. Perhaps the Rhondda win came as much a surprise to Plaid as it did to the rest of us.

But if it was a calculated move by Wood to grab the spotlight, the lack of a stronger representation in the Assembly it came at the expense of could come back to bite her a little later down the line.