There’s a Bright Future For Wales With Reform UK

James Downs
It’s 7.45am on Monday 6th June, 2030 – and I’m already late. The bus doesn’t run anymore – Reform axed all the subsidies to “free the market.”
Now our local service consists of a bloke called Dai who’ll give you a lift in his 2002 Ford Fiesta in exchange for a Gregg’s steak bake.
We crawl through town in heavy traffic. Radio Cymru doesn’t exist anymore – it was shut down as part of the “Unifying Voices” media programme. We listen to the only BBC radio station left – Nick Robinson tells us that “The Week in Woke” is coming up next, after a series of patriotic brass arrangements of Jerusalem.
Between tracks, a newsreader announces: “another pedestrian has tragically died on the A465 after speed restrictions introduced by the previous Labour government were finally lifted last year.”
They add that “drivers are advised to remain alert while reclaiming their freedom,” without even a hint of irony.
I step out of the car in front of the council offices, where I’ve worked for nearly 20 years. Only now it’s been rebranded as the “Local Government Efficiency Hub.”
Welsh Not
The bilingual signs were quietly removed last year as part of the Reform government’s “streamlining” agenda. Inside, we’re instructed to only use English in internal communications, “to maintain clarity and consistency.”
A few of us still speak Welsh in the corridor, quietly, but it feels like we’re being watched. A colleague who used “diolch” in an email last month was told to consider how their tone might “affect perceptions of professionalism.”
Official targets for Cymraeg have been dropped entirely – no more strategy, no more funding, just a vague promise that “our proud history will be kept alive.”
Provision for mental health was quietly dropped over the winter, too. “Life is difficult,” the Health Minister said, “and we must all do our bit to stop medicalising normal problems.”
Neurodivergent children are no longer diagnosed but placed on a “Resilience Through Routine” programme, which seems to involve colouring in maps of the British Empire and being taught to smile on command.
Suicides are up, but those figures have been deemed “non-compliant with data confidence targets” and are no longer published. At least the waiting lists are down.
I used to pop to the local library at lunchtime, but I’m less inclined now that it’s been renovated as one of the “Heritage Reading Rooms” sponsored by Wetherspoons.
The only books they seem to stock are Nigel Farage autobiographies and a special Reform UK storybook for under-5s called Let’s Stop the Boats!.
Rule Britannia
I head into the local café, instead. It used to be a nice vegan place – mostly oat milk and LGBTQ+ flags. That’s all illegal now. Today there’s a Meat Assurance Officer in attendance, checking the premises for traces of lentils.
Apparently the owner and her wife fled to Eryri to run an underground eco commune. For a moment, I imagine what it would be like to join them, until the chicken sandwich I’d ordered arrives at the table. The taste’s not bad, but it somehow brings back strong memories of going to the swimming pool as a child.
In the afternoon, I work with my team on the latest fallout from the Mining Strategy. The coal mines reopened last summer – “Jobs for the Valleys!” they said, but the new tip above Ferndale caught fire in September and hasn’t stopped smoking since.
The kids at the nearby school are developing coughs that the new, privatised health app won’t diagnose unless you pay for the premium package.
Still, that didn’t stop the local Reform MS – now rebranded as a “People’s Advocate” – from holding a press conference next to a pile of slag and calling it “our beautiful British heritage.”
I decide not to get a lift back with Dai after work, even though it’s a bit trickier to walk home these days. After doing away with the cycle paths, Reform have started to take the pavements up, too.
Still, it feels good to get outside, even if the air seems heavy. I reassure myself that there are only a few more days of the week to go before the weekend – a welcome bit of freedom from all the mess at work.
I’ll need all the strength I can to get through next week’s big event – the launch of the new school curriculum.
Welsh history is out, replaced by “Shared Britannic Values.” On Monday, the whole office has been instructed to attend Nigel’s parachute onto the top of Pen y Fan in a Union Jack wingsuit while Dame Katherine Jenkins sings Rule Britannia from a drone.
I check Monday’s weather forecast: heavy rain and a red warning for coal dust. What a terrible shame.
James Downs is a mental health campaigner, researcher and expert by experience in eating disorders.
He lives in Cardiff and can be contacted at @jamesldowns on X and Instagram, or via his website: jamesdowns.co.uk
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What a truly brilliant ‘you’d better believe it’ vision of a bleak future if we’re thick enough to choose it under the eradicate Cymru, life and everything party. Da iawn James a diolch. (Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have written that last bit. Knock on the door pending).
no fear – Reform isn’t aware of Nation Cymru just yet 😮💨
Can anyone remember that Ch4 mockumentary, UKIP: The First 100 Days, a few years ago, think it was in 2015, where is showed a dystopian future if there was ever a Ukip UK Government and Nigel Farage as PM? This piece sounds uncannily similar to what’s occuring now in America under fascist Donald Trump seeing Nigel Farage wants to ape doge, ice raids, making English America’s official language , which is unconstitutional as the Founding Fathers never declared one, removing DEI, whitewashing history. This is our future in Wales if voters effectively decide to cut off their nose to spite… Read more »
Excellent piece of writing. Based on what is happening in the USA under the rule of Farage’s hero, King Bonespurs, this will be exactly the route things would follow here.
BEWARE!
Great writing, James. We’re already on that slippery slope and even satire doesn’t help anymore. Wake up Wales or it will be too late.
Really funny, but probably a lot of it possible if reform get in next year.
The “Trumpification” of England has began with Derbyshire CC, prayers are to be said before full council meetings, and the priority for Reform Cllr Paul Oxberry was the construction of a church in Gresley. Kent CC have banned all flags, with the exception of the union jack, flag of St George and the Kent flag. And they call themselves a serious political party.
Great piece of satire. Let us hope that is not too prophetic.
Didn’t mention that Reform would put local Welsh people at the top of housing lists. I guess there’s no humour in that so wouldn’t have got any laughs.
You really think that’s true do you? According to Farage, Welsh people are defined by “people who have moved to and settled in Wales” meaning he will prioritise English people on top of the housing markets.
It’s almost as though having rigid definitions of who belongs and who doesn’t is somehow not so straightforward…!
Ah, sorry – I was tight on words. How about: “I was hoping to move out of town, having been on the waiting list for social housing near my elderly parents in Pembrokeshire. They’ve been left without carers for months since the full ban on migrant workers came into force. I was about to move in when suddenly it all fell through – the house was allocated to a bankrupt retiree from Surrey whose hedge fund had collapsed. Apparently his ‘local connection’ was stronger than mine, as I’d moved to Cardiff for work whereas his holiday home’s been in the… Read more »
you’re right of course. It’s better the way it is now. Let’s not change anything.
It really is
What a load of BS! Instead of making it up as you go along, why not focus on the truth of this awful Labour dystopian state we’re living in NOW! My local health board has been in ‘special measures’ for years now, council tax keeps going up but services are cut because councils are broke! Because councils are broke, our education system is broken. The 20 mph works because most people ignore it, unless there’s a speed camera or an occasional police car about. The only outcome of reducing the speed limit was the rise of road rage and tailgating,… Read more »
It is made up (and arguably, BS) – because it’s fiction. More than willing to keep writing about the shambles of Labour, which doesn’t require much imagination, sadly
The 20mph limit works, whether you like it or not. It is a matter of fact. Read it for yourself:
https://www.gov.wales/safest-summer-welsh-roads-new-statistics-show
But thanks for your contribution anyway Nige.
I drive the 20 everyday. Its easy, I have this thing in the car called a “speedometer” and it tells me the rate my vehicle is traveling. By using the gears, brakes and accelerator I can vary the speed of the vehicle. I can even turn the wheel and make it change direction. If you master all that, then 20 is no problem.
I do too Jeff…there’s usually a string of frustrated drivers behind me, which I find hilarious since most of them probably voted Labour.
None of which makes voting for Farage’s latest company of racists a good idea.
Feel better now you’ve got that off your chest?
You’re going to enjoy more BS than enough from Reform now they’ve got a new Chair, the aptly named Dr Bull.
If you feel so strongly about Labour, there are other alternatives without having to resort to far right populist parties.
Sometimes Gail, I feel quite alone on here: not today though.
Thank you.
You’ve got to be so politically ignorant to vote for Farage & his mob, you should probably have your right to vote removed until you’ve passed a competency test,
That’s the price you pay for democracy.
At least with PR we’ll get closer to the government we (collectively) deserve
That is the price paid for a poorly educated and nurtured population
Caerphilly Council in a nut-shell…
Hilarious but scarey. Diolch yn fawr iawn.