- Political animal - 10th September 2025
- Taxing your brain… - 9th September 2025
- Going into reverse - 8th September 2025
Covering major political stories has always been paramount for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry as he pursued his long journalistic career, so he was fascinated by events at Westminster, with the major reshuffle after Angela Rayner’s abrupt resignation described as a way to take on Reform UK, which is likely to make major inroads at Welsh elections.
As the dust settles following Angela Rayner’s extraordinary departure, and the forced reshuffle at Westminster it has led to, attention now turns to how this could affect Wales.
In particular the re-jig has been done not simply to fill holes, but also to take on the right-wing party Reform UK, which (party managers fear) could be about to secure its first seat at next year’s Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) elections.
Reform UK would take the orthodox principle of parliamentary sovereignty and use it as a hatchet against perceived constraints on its agenda.
Putting Westminster politicians, not unelected technocrats, back on top was the essence of Brexit, Nigel Farage’s first crusade.
In government, whether in Wales or at Westminster, he seeks to finish the job.
To left-leaning parties in the WP/SC the rise of Mr Farage’s supporters is a major source of concern, with significant defections to Reform UK, including former Welsh Secretary David Jones, ex-Tory Chairman Sir Jake Berry, and one-time Conservative Assembly Member Laura Anne Jones.
The Conservatives are clearly rattled by these defections, and have hit back.
James Evans accused Ms Jones of having no principles, while Tom Giffard said Reform UK was welcome to someone who was “always in the news for the wrong reasons”.
It came as two councillors in Conwy also left the Tories for Reform UK, and one leading Welsh political analyst who works with all of the parties telling The Eye about one of Mr Farage’s group being elected: “They all fear this, and I have to keep telling them it could actually happen at the next Senedd elections according to our polling…”.
The controversial party thinks it is on the cusp of success in a newly-expanded WP/SC at the elections scheduled for May 2026, with recent polling suggesting support for them is closely behind Labour, and neck and neck with Plaid Cymru (Plaid).
Mr Farage has declared that he is open to doing a deal because the new voting system will mean “it’s not going to be easy” to win an overall majority.
Meanwhile, the award-winning screen writer Russell T Davies (who comes from Swansea) is aghast, and has said the growth in support for Reform UK as well as the presidency of Donald Trump has meant gay rights are “rapidly and urgently getting worse”.
He said the LGBT community should be “revolting in terror and anger and action” in response to growing support for Reform UK, which has pledged to “ban transgender ideology” in schools.
Speaking to the Big Issue, Mr Davies said: “When Queer As Folk came out in 1999, if you’d said: ‘What will gay rights be like in 2025?’, we’d have said: ‘Oh, it will all be marvellous – it’ll be sunshine and skipping down the street, hand in hand – gays, queers, lesbians, everyone.’
“And look at where we are. Things got better but now things are rapidly and urgently getting worse.
“What happens in America always happens here, and as we look down the barrel of a Reform government, we, the gay community, queer community, should be revolting in terror and anger and action.”
According to Reform UK’s manifesto, its education policies include plans for a “patriotic” curriculum, tax relief of 20 per cent on private schools and cuts to funding for universities “that undermine free speech”.
It has also pledged to replace the Equality Act and said it would scrap diversity, equality and inclusion rules.
Mr Davies has called on the younger generation of LGBT people to organise and fight back against the rhetoric and policies that have emerged on the hard right of British politics.
He proclaimed: “I hope they’re prepared to fight, that younger generation that has no idea how they got there. And neither should they; they’re busy living their lives. I didn’t spend my youth looking back at World War Two. But I do think: ‘Are you prepared to fight? Because a fight is coming. I’m not being alarmist. I’m 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen.”
Reform UK failed to win any WP/SC members at the last vote in 2021, but came second in 13 Welsh constituencies at the General Election (GE) last summer.
Polling by Survation conducted earlier this year, put Labour on 27 per cent, with Plaid and Reform UK on 24 per cent each.
The new voting system will elect a larger WP/SC with 96 seats instead of the current 60, and will use a list system that aims to better reflect how the public voted.
However, it may not all be plain sailing for Mr Farage, if GEs are any guide, and the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said: “I have ruled out a pact with Nigel Farage in the Westminster parliament”.
But Reform UK having a seat in the WP/SC CANNOT be ruled out.
For other party managers in Wales that’s bad news…
The memories of Phil’s, remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (during which major political stories were often reported) as he was gripped by the rare and incurable neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’.Order the book now!
Tomorrow – why disturbing details of a car maker in the UK coming under cyber attack so that it was forced to halt work, have highlighted how there have been attempts to hack into The Eye too.
