Can Reform UK take Wales in the May elections?

One reminder of the extent to which British politics has fragmented arrives with the announcement of a new leader for Reform UK in Wales. At any other time, such an event would have been pretty marginal, but now, with the party system in Wales turning kaleidoscopic and the rise of Reform in previously unpromising places, it rightly attracts attention. Wales is indeed now one of Reform’s better prospects in the bumper round of elections in May.

Dan Thomas, seemingly hand-picked by Nigel Farage, as with all recent such nominations. Thomas is relatively obscure, and the news came as something of a surprise. By his own witness, he has spent most of his life in London, and until 2024 he was the leader of the Conservative cohort at Barnet Council (in opposition from 2022). He defected to Reform last year, and in December further “defected” by moving home and family from Finchley to the Welsh Valleys. Thus, Thomas is a risky figure to lead the campaign in Wales.

On the plus side, he has no specifically Welsh Conservative baggage; on the other hand, his critics might portray him as a bit of a carpetbagger.

Yes: the formerly Conservative member for Brecon and Radnorshire, James Evans, who was sacked, Jenrick-style, by his leader last month over suspicions that he was planning to defect to Reform. He joins Laura Anne Jones as the second MS (Member of the Senedd) for Reform in Cardiff Bay.

It’s not likely, but it’s possible. The party is running second in the opinion polls, behind Plaid Cymru, and well ahead of Welsh Labour, with the Conservatives and Greens both running at around 10 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats even further behind. Recent radical change in the voting system for the Senedd makes it even more proportional than before, and that tends to favour parties that have more evenly spread support, such as Reform.

The collapse in national support for the UK Labour government is compounded by the fact that governments in Wales have been led by Labour since the inception of devolution in 1998. Meanwhile, the Conservatives and others remain weak, leaving Reform and Plaid Cymru as the principal challengers to Labour.

However, revelations in the past few months about Nathan Gill, the former Reform leader in Wales, and his conviction for acting as a Russian agent, have dented Reform’s appeal. The Senedd Caerphilly by-election in October, where Plaid easily took the safe seat from Labour against a spirited Reform campaign, is a sign of what might happen, albeit tactical voting isn’t so important in the new proportional representation (PR) system for the Welsh parliament.

“No one” is the flippant answer, in that PR makes it extremely unlikely that any single party will form an overall majority. Reform would need to do some sort of deal with another party to become the government, but the Conservatives are the only conceivable partner, and even then might not have the strength in the Senedd.

By contrast, Plaid, which would likely be the single biggest party, has a range of possible suitors – Greens in particular, and perhaps the Liberal Democrats, but not Labour in the circumstances. Reform would then probably be the main opposition party. In future, the PR system will make multiparty coalition-building a normal state of affairs, so Reform won’t find it easy to form a majority administration.

Given the mixed performance of Reform in local councils, it may be just as well that they don’t get to try to govern Wales, a far more ambitious project. After all, Farage says Reform UK isn’t ready to run Britain, and that pretty much means Wales as well.

Being the main opposition party would suit Thomas and his much-enlarged Reform group of Senedd members far better. Britain would thus have multiple different party systems after May: Plaid v Reform in Wales; SNP v Labour in Scotland; and Reform v Labour, plus some Reform v Green, Conservative v Reform, and Conservative v Liberal Democrat contests in various parts of England.

The once normal Labour v Conservative contests in clearly two-way marginal seats could become relatively unusual by the next general election.