{"id":778182,"date":"2026-09-21T21:08:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T21:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778182\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T21:08:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T21:08:23","slug":"another-day-another-reform-wales-leader-grumpy-nige-seems-to-miss-the-old-one-john-crace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778182\/","title":{"rendered":"Another day, another Reform Wales leader. Grumpy Nige seems to miss the old one | John Crace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five or so Reform members of the Senedd were lined up against a wall. Almost as if they were in a police identification parade. Reform\u2019s need to find a new leader in Wales<\/a> is becoming habit-forming.<\/p>\n

First, Nathan Gill was banged up for 10 and a half years<\/a> on eight counts of taking \u00a340K in bribes to make statements in support of Russia. Easily done. Who among us hasn\u2019t been tempted by the Kremlin? And then last week, Dan Thomas chose to stand down after being arrested on suspicion of assault and coercive behaviour<\/a>, leaving the Welsh leadership spot open once more. He denies the allegations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if there\u2019s a pattern emerging. That the job of Reform leader in Wales is somehow cursed. Otherwise law-abiding men and women suddenly find themselves accused of all sorts of things. So much so that it\u2019s now the job that no one really wants.<\/p>\n

Yet politics abhors a vacuum, and someone has to do the job. So it was a decidedly grumpy-looking Nigel Farage<\/a> who turned up in Cardiff on Monday morning to pretend to be interested in announcing the next Reform Senedd leader. Perhaps he reckoned he had better things to do.<\/p>\n

The event \u2013 if you can call a five-minute announcement that \u2013 was supposed to kick off at 11.45. Nige was booked on the 12.18 back to Paddington and had hoped to be in London for a late lunch. No champagne and oysters. There were no undercover reporters posing as Americans trying to make a potentially illegal donation this time. Instead, there was a 20-minute delay.<\/p>\n

Nige really was going through the motions. He was thrilled by the results in Wales at the May elections<\/a>, he began. He didn\u2019t sound thrilled. Though that could be because Reform has been shedding support in Wales \u2013 as elsewhere \u2013 ever since. They have lost seven points in the opinion polls over the course of the summer and are looking less and less likely to challenge Plaid Cymru.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan Thomas has been doing a brilliant job,\u201d Nige continued. \u201cI am sorry for his personal difficulties.\u201d This was just weird. Almost as if he hadn\u2019t even considered what Thomas had been alleged to have done. Yeah, Dan. Great bloke. Brilliant Reform leader. Always buys his round in the pub. It\u2019s just unfortunate that he\u2019s been arrested on suspicion of assault and coercive control. But it\u2019s no big deal. He\u2019ll soon be sorted.<\/p>\n

Nige doubled down, calling the arrest a \u201cbump in the road\u201d. Not a word of sympathy or support for the person he is accused of having assaulted or subjected to coercive control. Besides, he was clear that Dan would come back soon. There would always be a welcome in the Reform valleys for Dan. We all need someone like Dan.<\/p>\n

After the Song for Dan, Nige made the briefest of introductions to the new leader. Best to skip over the bit where almost half the Reform members of the Senedd had preferred a different candidate. The party in Wales is a hotbed of backstabbing. Not literally, mind. The job was going to Helen Jenner<\/a>, the former deputy leader and Nige\u2019s old-time Ukip mucker. \u201cI\u2019ve known her for years and I trust her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Helen mumbled her thanks and said she would build on the good work done by others. It wasn\u2019t clear if Dan would take over from her if he is cleared of the allegations, which he denies. It sounded like a possibility. In which case, I guess Dan might then only be keeping the seat warm for Nathan when he gets early release in 2031. You have to admire Reform\u2019s loyalty.<\/p>\n

And their amnesia. Because you also can\u2019t help wondering if Nige is beginning to lose the plot somewhat. How else do you explain his recent Substack post in which he claimed that \u201cBritish politics is awash with dirty money\u201d? I mean, he\u2019s obviously not entirely wrong. But why would he want to draw attention to it when questions remain over money received by Reform and figures associated with the party?<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s the \u00a340K that went to Gill from the Russians. There was the apparent eagerness on the part of Dan Jukes and James Orr to accept overseas donations. A meeting at which Nige was present. Though not listening, apparently. There\u2019s the dosh from Ben Delo, a man convicted of failing to comply with anti-money-laundering legislation in the US.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the cash from Posh George and his mum that is somewhat opaque to say the least. There are the police and parliamentary investigations. The \u00a35m gift that went undeclared. With the best will in the world, none of this seems the model of transparency. But what do I know? And it\u2019s good to know that Reform operates in a world where any transgressions are so readily forgiven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-five or so Reform members of the Senedd were lined up against a wall. Almost as if they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-778182","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\/778182","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=778182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}