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Belief is growing among seasoned politicians and experts that the right wing party Reform UK may win its first seat in the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) next year, as the award-winning screenwriter Russell T Davies blames the group for declining gay rights.
To left-leaning parties in the WP/SC the rise of Nigel Farage’s supporters is a major source of concern, with significant defections to Reform UK, such as the former Conservative Assembly Member Laura Anne Jones.
The Conservatives are clearly rattled by these moves, 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 told The Eye: “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 Mr 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 many Welsh politicians and critics that’s bad news…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’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 – how signs are appearing promoting an extremist Welsh nationalist group with the logo of a 1960s paramilitary organisation, apparently painting over the fact that the body had rumoured links to the IRA, and was led by a man with the mental age of a child.
