{"id":777834,"date":"2026-09-21T13:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777834\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:38:09","slug":"helen-jenner-announced-as-new-leader-of-reform-in-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777834\/","title":{"rendered":"Helen Jenner announced as new leader of Reform in Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenner had been interim leader and favourite to replace Thomas, with sources telling BBC Wales that “very senior” Reform figures had backed her.<\/p>\n

She is a married mother-of-two from Anglesey and had spent 15 years working as a teacher. <\/p>\n

A fluent Welsh speaker, Jenner had been a member of all Farage’s parties since UKIP, and stood for the Brexit Party in the 2019 Senedd election.<\/p>\n

Thomas stepped down on 15 September after he was arrested on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour. He was bailed pending further enquiries<\/a>, and denies doing anything wrong.<\/p>\n

He was not on the steps of the Senedd for Jenner’s unveiling as leader, but he remains a Reform MS after chief whip Ll\u0177r Powell said he had not considered removing the whip from him.<\/p>\n

After he stepped down, Thomas had been among the Reform Senedd members who met in Cardiff Bay last week to discuss their next steps, with a party official from London attending to oversee proceedings.<\/p>\n

Nigel Farage told reporters that it was “pretty much untenable for him to continue as leader”.<\/p>\n

He described Jenner as “someone I trust”.<\/p>\n

Farage added the party will carry on “as if nothing had happened, waiting for Dan, who is going to stay a member of this place, to come back more actively with us”.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Wales, Jenner said there were a “few things” Reform needed to change, including giving members more of a say on policy.<\/p>\n

She denied the party had a “unity issue” after James Evans claimed last week he would have had “majority” support to stand as leader had he not ruled himself out.<\/p>\n

“I think that it was a really difficult time for us,” Jenner said.<\/p>\n

“They say a week’s a long time in politics – to be honest, 24 hours was a long time in politics. But I think we are really united in terms of what we’re trying to achieve here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jenner had been interim leader and favourite to replace Thomas, with sources telling BBC Wales that “very senior”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-777834","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\/777834","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=777834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}