Concerns about legal and illegal migration have fuelled growing fury in the heart of Labour’s once-safe South Wales heartland.
Caerphilly, which has been represented by Labour politicians in Westminster and Cardiff Bay in every election since 1918, could now witness a seismic shift towards Reform UK, propelled in part by an influx of migrants crossing the Channel.
More than 180,000 illegal migrants have crossed the Channel since 2018, including almost 60,000 under Sir Keir Starmer’s watch.
It did not take long to find voters concerned about the crisis in the English Channel.
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Dedus Anstee-Coles said: “A person who enters from any offshore, without any legal documentation, is actually breaking the law instantly.
“Therefore, their legal status demands that that person should not be allowed in this country. What has changed?”
Lynn Morgan added: “It is an issue, really, because you think, well, when is it going to stop? People can’t get doctors appointments and dentists, and this, that and the other. We don’t have the infrastructure, really, to take any more in.”
However, Caerphilly’s migrant population stood at just 2.9 per cent in the 2021 Census, constituting the lowest foreign-born figure across Wales’s 22 boroughs.
Nigel Farage has his eyes set of Caerphilly
|PA
The percentage of Welsh-born residents also only witnessed a modest drop compared to 2011, falling by 1.3 per cent to 87.3 per cent amid an increase in English-born inhabitants.
Other voters in Caerphilly expressed sympathy with migrants hoping to make a new life in the UK.
Local resident Philip Davies told GB News: “They’re here to help. They’re here to benefit ourselves.
“If I wanted a job and I couldn’t get the money, I’d move, I’d be exactly like the immigrants coming here. They get a better standard of living coming here, you can’t blame them.”
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Migrants reach the UK after crossing the Channel | PAHowever, Reform UK is continuing to make migration a cornerstone of its by-election campaign.
“Immigration has been a big issue for a number of years,” Reform UK candidate Llyr Powell told GB News. “The Conservatives said they would get to grips with it; failed.
“Keir Starmer said at the last General Election he would come to grips with it, and he is proving to be a failure on it.
“The only person who has been consistent on migration is Nigel Farage, and the people trust him on migration.”
Mr Powell also dismissed the suggestion that Caerphilly’s low numbers of foreign-born workers prove migration is not an issue.
He added: “It’s a real issue in Wales because we do have pressure on our public services, we do have young people who want to be trained in better jobs but the way in which the Welsh Government has been dealing with job shortages isn’t by training young people, it’s been by importing labour.”
While immigration is not a devolved issue in Wales, Cardiff Bay’s push to become a so-called Nation of Sanctuary has raised concerns about spending costs.
The Labour Government in Cardiff Bay unveiled the policy in 2019, claiming it would provide much-needed support to integrate refugees and asylum seekers.
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Around £45million of the Nation of Sanctuary’s £55million has been spent on Ukrainian refugees who fled to Wales following Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February 2022.
Despite Welsh First Minister Baroness Morgan doubling-down on the scheme last week, a recent opinion poll found that just 34 per cent of voters in Wales support becoming a Nation of Sanctuary, compared to 49 per cent who would scrap the policy.
Reform UK is looking to make inroads with voters by tapping into widespread opposition to the scheme.
In a leaflet distributed to voters in Caerphilly, Reform UK said: “Enablers in Plaid Cymru enthusiastically support Labour’s £55million ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ scheme - which gives preferential treatment to asylum seekers, while the number of migrants crossing the Channel has hit 50,000 during Keir Starmer’s term in office.”
A formal complaint was lodged against a second letter which said: “Only Reform opposes Labour and Plaid’s £55million ‘Nation of Sanctuary’ scheme for asylum seekers.”
However, Mr Powell also fears being a Nation of Sanctuary puts a “welcome sign on Wales”.
“That’s a danger,” Mr Powell told GB News. “The only people that’s helping there are the people smugglers.”
And the migration row spilled over in this week’s hustings debate.
Caerphilly's foreign-born population is just 2.9 per cent of its population but the migrant crisis remains a major concern for voters
|GETTY
Taking aim at Reform UK, Plaid Cymru candidate Lindsay Whittle said: “Whilst they were fleeing bombs and bullets thrown at them by the Russians, the Reform leader [in Wales] was accepting bribes from the Russians.”
Mr Lindsay was making reference to Mr Powell’s previous work as a caseworker for ex-Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill.
Mr Gill pleaded guilty last month to taking bribes from Russia, a revelation that Mr Powell described as “traitorous”.
Labour’s Caerphilly candidate Richard Tunnicliffe also accused Mr Powell of “weaponising” the migration debate.
He added: “Reform doesn’t want to fix it, they just want to sow division and fear.”
However, Mr Powell took Mr Tunnicliffe to task over net migration to Caerphilly.
After Mr Tunnicliffe admitted that illegal immigration is “wrong”, the Berkshire-born ex-publisher appeared stuck on whether Caerphilly needed a fresh influx of legal migrants, eventually saying: “It depends on what we need.”
Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth raised eyebrows this week after arguing that there is no such thing as illegal immigration.
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Plaid Cymru candidate Lindsay Whittle took aim at Reform UK over Ukraine
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“There’s no such thing as illegal immigration, as such,” the Plaid Cymru leader said.
He added: “Movement of people is normal. There’s a whole host of reasons [they’re crossing the Channel].
“There’s family. There’s the fact that Britain once had an Empire and that the English language became spoken across the world.”
Meanwhile, Reform UK is committed to scrapping the Nation of Sanctuary scheme and deporting 600,000 illegal migrants from across the UK under its Operation Restoring Justice plan.
However, one local woman spoke out during the hustings about Reform UK’s stance on immigration.
Challenging Mr Powell, the woman said: “I have never felt so unwelcome in my own home town as I do since your party came into Caerphilly with all the rhetoric you bring in.
“I have to say to my sons, please don’t go there. Please don’t do this. I blame you for that.”
Despite Caerphilly’s lower proportion of foreign-born residents, polling guru James Johnson pointed out why migration remains a key issue for voters.
Richard Tunnicliffe looked stumped when he was asked about whether Caerphilly needs more migration
|GETTY
Mr Johnson, who co-founded JL Partners after working as a special adviser to Theresa May, told GB News: “It’s important, even if the numbers are low to voters, because it’s what they use to measure the progress and performance of governments and parties.
“It is a key issue that they use to work out if a party is on their side, or whether a party is getting things done.
“The reason why Labour and the Tories are doing poorly on this metric is because the voters of Caerphilly and the voters of everywhere else feel that those two main parties have let them down on the issue of immigration. Reform is the beneficiary of that.”
Mr Johnson also pointed out that the speed of change can prompt a reaction from voters.
However, voters in Caerphilly, who voted to leave the EU in 2016, pointed out that a drastic shift came after the last Census was taken in March 2021.
“We've probably got eight Turkish barbers and loads of vape shops. It's all happened since Covid,” one voter said.
Net migration stood at 872,000 in 2022, peaking at a record-busting 906,000 in the year ending June 2023.
Despite the figure dropping to 431,000 in 2024, the figure remained significantly higher than pre-Brexit levels.
And it is not just Reform UK voters who have concerns about immigration.
Llyr Powell discussed the Caerphilly by-election campaign with GB News | GB NEWSA mother, who is not yet sure how she will vote, told GB News: “Caerphilly has changed.
“I was born and bred here but when you look at the high street, the shops, it’s not as much about community anymore. The change has been so quick over the past few years."
Another 26-year-old woman, who confessed she is not planning on voting, added: “I pay my taxes, work hard, and what do I get? Nothing. These people come here, get put up in hotels, given money. It’s not fair.”
A recent opinion poll conducted by Survation found that the Caerphilly by-election is a neck-and-neck race between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru.
Reform’s support has surged from just two per cent in 2021 to 42 per cent today, while Plaid Cymru’s 10-point boost takes them to 38 per cent.
Meanwhile, Labour’s support has collapsed to its lowest level in Caerphilly on record, down from 46 per cent to just 12 per cent.
A Welsh Labour source cautioned against reading too much into Survation’s survey.
“The sample size of the latest poll is smaller than the number of people we talk to in a day,” they said.
“There’s a reason why constituency-level polling isn’t widely done. It’s unreliable.”
GB News has approached Mr Tunnicliffe and Mr Whittle for comment.
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