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New leader of Reform UK in Wales, Dan Thomas. Photo Andrew Matthews\/PA Wire<\/p>\n New leader of Reform UK in Wales, Dan Thomas. Photo Andrew Matthews\/PA Wire<\/p>\n
Martin Shipton<\/p>\n
The newly appointed leader of Reform UK in Wales hasn\u2019t moved back to his home town in the Valleys, but has bought a \u00a31m house near Bath, we can reveal.<\/p>\n
Dan Thomas, the former Conservative leader of Barnet council in London, was introduced on February 5 by Nigel Farage as his handpicked leader in Wales.<\/p>\n
Farage told the Reform event in Newport: \u201cHe has not been brought into Reform \u2018from the outside\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has voluntarily left London, come back to the Valleys, living in Islwyn, come back to his home, and he\u2019s done that because he loves Wales.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done that because he wants his children to grow up being Welsh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had lots of other candidates but none with the battle-hardened experience of running big budgets which is exactly what he did when he ran Barnet council.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas resigned at the end of last year after 19 years as a councillor, saying he moved away from Barnet so that he and his wife could raise their young sons in the countryside and live closer to their families in south Wales.<\/p>\n
Blackwood-born Thomas told the conference in Newport: \u201cAfter 27 years I\u2019m back home. Raising my two boys in the south Wales valleys. I\u2019ve come back to where I belong.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, a source contacted us to say: \u201cI read the NationCymru article about Dan Thomas, the new Welsh Reform leader. What he omits to tell is that he lives in a \u00a31m house in Bath. The \u2018countryside\u2019 is not Wales. I feel this is a calculated misdirection if not blatant lie and one your readers would like to know about.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe moved there last year from London \u2013 his parents live in Blackwood. He doesn\u2019t. They [Thomas and his wife] sold their house in Edgware in London for a huge profit and moved to Bath last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Thomas was the Tory leader of Barnet council until 2022, when the party lost power to overall Labour control for the first time since the borough was established in 1964. He defected to Reform UK in June 2025 and in December 2025 resigned his seat on the council.<\/p>\n
At the time his successor as leader of the now opposition Conservative group on the council, Cllr Peter Zinkin, told the London Standard: \u201cHe informed us several months ago that this would be his final year serving as a councillor in Barnet, having moved to the West Country to be closer to his family and raise his children there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edgware<\/p>\n
Nation.Cymru contacted Cllr Zinkin, who told us: \u201cOur understanding is that he sold his house in Edgware and moved to the Bath area, where he is working for a large financial institution.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has two very young children, the older of the two being three or four years old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blaenau Gwent Labour MS Alun Davies said: \u201cWhen he was announced as Reform\u2019s leader in Wales, we were told that after spending his adult life in England he had returned to his roots in the Valleys. Now we learn that isn\u2019t true, but that he moved from London to the Bath area. At the beginning of their Senedd election campaign, their narrative has been built on a fraud and a lie.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs James Evans [the Tory MS who defected to Reform this week] said quite recently, Reform is full of hypocrites who have no principles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time this shower had seats in the Senedd, when they stood as UKIP, they were led by Neil Hamilton, who lived in a mansion in Wiltshire. This time their leader lives 10 miles nearer to Wales. At this rate they will have a leader who actually lives in Wales by 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n
Press team<\/p>\n
We wrote to Reform UK\u2019s press team, stating: \u201cWe have been told that Dan Thomas does not live in Wales, but in the Bath area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe shall be publishing a story to this effect later today.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould you please answer the following questions:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy was it stated at the Newport event that Reform\u2019s newly announced Wales leader Dan Thomas lives in Wales, when he in fact lives in the Bath area in a house he has bought for around \u00a31m since selling his previous home in Edgware?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been told that he is working for a large financial institution from his home in the Bath area. Why was this not made clear?<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you will be aware, Mr Thomas\u2019s ability to stand for election to the Senedd depends on his living in Wales at what is his primary residence. Is it his intention to claim that his primary residence is his father\u2019s home in Blackwood, and does he honestly believe that complies with the law?.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are the circumstances under which he became leader of the party in Wales? Was the first approach made by him or the party, and when did this occur?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was it decided by Mr Farage that Mr Thomas would be appointed the leader and on what basis was the decision taken?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat consideration was given to the aforementioned issue of residency, and what conclusion was reached?<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease respond promptly.\u201d<\/p>\n
We have not received a response.<\/p>\n
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\n the people of Wales.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New leader of Reform UK in Wales, Dan Thomas. Photo Andrew Matthews\/PA Wire Martin Shipton The newly appointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-412056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412056","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=412056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}