{"id":404952,"date":"2026-02-03T03:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/404952\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T03:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:25:12","slug":"wales-reform-can-new-welsh-leader-share-spotlight-with-nigel-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/404952\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales Reform: Can new Welsh leader share spotlight with Nigel Farage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ll notice that we don’t know yet who the leader will actually be.<\/p>\n

Torfaen councillor Jason O’Connell looks to be in the running.<\/p>\n

He was relatively tight-lipped on BBC Wales’s Politics Wales programme on Sunday, but did say he thought he would be up to the job.<\/a><\/p>\n

He has also done a lot of other media work recently, including an appearance on the flagship Today programme on Radio 4 and fronting a Reform party political broadcast.<\/p>\n

Llyr Powell built up a profile as Reform candidate in the Caerphilly by-election last year, but defeat at the hands of Plaid Cymru was a chastening experience and might play in to the party’s potential tempering of ambitions for May.<\/p>\n

Reform’s only current MS, Laura Anne Jones, has demurred when asked if she would want to be leader – but also has a recent suspension from the Senedd on her CV.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Reckless, previously Conservative, UKIP, Brexit Party, independent, and Abolish the Assembly Party, is a now a Reform member.<\/p>\n

He has been present at many of their big recent Welsh events including Caerphilly and the rally in Llandudno, and is helping to craft policies and the manifesto.<\/p>\n

Former Conservative Welsh secretary David Jones made it clear when he joined that he did not want to run again for elected office.<\/p>\n

Until we get the name of the leader, a set of policies and a list of confirmed candidates, Reform in Wales will remain something of a mystery.<\/p>\n

There had been an indication before Christmas that after its difficult autumn, Reform would hit the ground running in Wales in the New Year.<\/p>\n

They certainly did not in January.<\/p>\n

But they could be about to make up for lost time.<\/p>\n

After a period of relative silence any announcements from Farage \u2013 or a new Welsh leader \u2013 will make the election itself seem even closer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You’ll notice that we don’t know yet who the leader will actually be. Torfaen councillor Jason O’Connell looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-404952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}