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“Unprecedented tactical voting” took Caerphilly by-election victory out of Reform UK’s hands, according to the area’s former Member of Parliament, Sir Wayne David.

Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle came out on top after voters went to the polls last week, seeing off the challenge of Reform’s Llŷr Powell – while Labour were condemned to a distant third place.

The Senedd by-election followed the death of Labour’s Hefin David, who had served the constituency for nine years, in August.

Discussing his thoughts on last week’s result in an article for website LabourList, Labour’s Sir Wayne admitted his party has “a lot of work to do” but said “understanding the dynamics at play in this by-election provides us with a useful starting point”.

He explained it would be “foolish to pretend the result does not require the Labour Party, and to a lesser extent Welsh Labour, to examine why support was lost to Plaid” – but said it was “vitally important to understand the context in which many people switched their support from Labour to Plaid and their tactical motivation for doing so”.

First elected in 2001, Sir Wayne was re-elected five times before stepping down ahead of the 2024 general election.

Discussing the by-election campaign, in which he worked closely with Labour candidate Richard Tunnicliffe, Sir Wayne said: “For most of the campaign, Reform UK were the frontrunners but as the campaign developed Reform UK were increasingly seen as being profoundly divisive outsiders who had no understanding of, or empathy with, the communities which make up the constituency.

“Farage visited the constituency on at least three occasions and Reform UK made no attempt to engage with local issues, relying instead on racist anti-migrant rhetoric.

“The local Ukrainian community in particular felt under pressure and liaised effectively with progressives across the political spectrum.”

Sir Wayne continued: “As the ‘minder’ for the excellent Labour candidate, Richard Tunnicliffe, I spoke with literally hundreds of people across the length and breadth of the constituency during the six weeks of the campaign. Having been the MP for 23 years, many of these former constituents I knew well.

“By the mid-point of the campaign, it was clear that opinion in the constituency was polarising – people were either ‘for’ or ‘against’ Reform UK.

“At this point, the level of support for Labour and Plaid was not hugely different but a Wales-wide opinion poll gave the impression that Plaid was the main challenger to Reform.

“During the closing stage of the campaign many Labour supporters therefore ‘lent’ their support to Plaid to stop Reform UK. As one Labour Party member told me ‘the important thing in this by-election is to send Reform packing. Nothing is more important than that’.”