Plaid Cymru wins Welsh Senedd elections, ending 100 years of Labour control

To be entirely fair, it took two for that particular tango; the Tories could’ve went it alone with a minority government.

It's a loud minority that hate Drakeford and his COVID policies, he was generally liked for it. Vaughan Gething and Starmer have been the biggest causes of loss of votes (you can see the drops in the polls at those times), and the general malais about the Welsh Government meant that the old tactic of "Welsh Labour is different from UK labour" stopped working

Northern Ireland uses a power-sharing system, that is intended to ensure that the Northern Ireland Executive consists of ministers from both the Republican/Catholic and Unionist/Protestant communities. The maths behind how this works in practice is [complicated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Hondt_method?wprov=sfti1#) but a simple model is that the largest party gets to pick a minister, and then the next largest party gets to pick the next minister, and so on. The maths ensures that the party with the most votes usually gets the most ministers but no party with significant votes is left out completely. The head of the executive is its own complicated kettle of fish. The Good Friday Agreement established two equal leaders of the Northern Ireland Executive - the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Despite their names the two Ministers have equal power and authority. The First Minister is nominated by the largest party in the assembly, and the Deputy First Minister is nominated by the largest party from the next largest community block (“Unionist”, “Nationalist”, or ”Other”). This means that when Sinn Féin became the largest party in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, they got to nominate the First Minister, making Michelle O’Neill the first nationalist/republican First Minister. As the second largest party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) nominated Emma Little-Pengelly as Deputy First Minister. Although this changing of roles was symbolically significant, since the two ministers have equal power it did not change anything from a practical standpoint.

TLDR It's a dumpster fire In the Northern Ireland Assembly, there are generally three axis: pro/anti Irish Reunification, pro/anti Brexit, and liberal/conservative. Sinn Fein, the largest party is pro reunification, anti Brexit, and more liberal. The SDLP \[Social Democratic Labor Party\] is the little sibling of Sinn Fein at this point. The DUP \[Democratic Unionist Party\] is conservative and anti reunification and is mixed on Brexit. The Ulster Unionist Party is the little sibling of the DUP. Alliance is trying to be as middle of the road as possible and gets run over by both sides. The Northern Ireland Assembly has collapsed multiple times, including one time for three years from 2017-2020 and about a year and half from 2022-2023. There is also a looming risk from paramilitary organizations. Brexit did a number on the economy, which has resulted in a lot of friction within the DUP, specifically.

The Northern Ireland Executive operates on a Power Sharing structure where both the largest Catholic / Irish Nationalist party and largest Protestant / Unionist Party must agree to go into power together, with the largest party nominating the First Minister and the smaller of the two the Deputy First Minister (Essentially the same role. The difference in title exists for petty reasons). Currently Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Party is the largest party in Northern Ireland and support unification with the Republic. Northern Ireland also sends MPs to Westminster. Sinn Fein have the largest amount with 7 but they are an absentee party so when elected they refuse to sit in London. Unlike Wales and Scotland, Sinn Fein can’t just put forward legislation that will begin the process of Northern Ireland leaving the UK and joining the Republic. The conditions for enabling this or rather allowing the people of Northern Ireland to enable their own self determination is tied up in the conditions of the Good Friday Agreement, the result of the peace process that put an end to The Troubles, a 30+ year sectarian conflict. The power sharing agreement was also defined by the GFA. Basically conditions need to be met where in a border poll will be carried out to determine if the majority are in favour of a United Ireland and then it gets vague sort of after that.

1) no, great Britain was formed in 1706, it was part of england before that 2) it wasn't a vassal state it was annexed in the 1500s by Henry VIII. It only became a separate entity in the 90s. Vassalage implies it was a separate entity. Wales wasn't a vassal of england/Britain any more that catalonia is a vassal of Spain, or Brittany France. Thats not to say independence movements in any of these places are wrong, but the word vassal means something. If you want to say its been a vassal for 27 years, I would accept that though. 3) I literally stated the facts. I wanted plaid to win. If you want a faster independence schedule take that up with plaid and the Welsh people, not me.

It seems to be a trend that when the group is the political/socio-economic majority and in a position of power, Nationalist parties lean very right (i.e. BNP, UKIP, their various off-shoots), whereas when the group is a political/socio-economic minority and it is another group in power political (relatively speaking) then Nationalist parties tend to lean left (SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein are all examples of this). Of course, those who are tied to political/socio-economic majorities and those in power, i.e. those who are typically right-wing, do tend to be given far more of a platform and hold far more influence.

Did you only read half of the article? \>Plaid Cymru has won the Welsh Senedd elections, ending 100 years of Labour dominance in Wales Thus the authors are also referring to Labour's dominance of Welsh politics.