New Reform Wales councillor made calls for benefits claimants to be put down
Emily Price
Reform UK’s most recent Welsh defector previously featured in a national newspaper after she told friends on Facebook that people on benefits needed “putting down”.
On Monday (August 18) Swansea gained its first Reform UK councillor when Francesca O’Brien – who represents Mumbles – announced she had joined Nigel Farage’s party.
She was first elected to the council in 2022 but stood as a Tory general election candidate for the Gower seat in 2019.
During O’Brien’s election campaign, The Guardian newspaper reported how she had previously written on social media that she believed people on the reality TV show Benefits Street needed “putting down”.
In now deleted posts by the privately educated councillor published in 2014, she said: “Benefit Street..anyone else watching this?? Wow, these people are unreal!!!”
In another post about the TV series that followed the lives of benefit claimants, Reform’s newest recruit wrote: “My blood is boiling, these people need putting down.”
She then appeared to endorse a friend’s suggestion for, “twat a tramp Tuesday” to “take your batts [sic] to the streets”.
Defection
Cllr O’Brien later apologised for the comments saying they were “off the cuff”.
At the time, Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford said he could not imagine voters in Gower backing such a candidate.
Cllr O’Brien went on to come second in the 2019 general election with the Gower seat being held by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi.
We asked the Mumbles councillor if she regretted the comments she had previously made about benefits claimants – but Cllr O’Brien did not respond.
Announcing her defection on Monday, she said Farage’s party was the only chance to break the “Labour-Plaid consensus in Cardiff Bay and create a government in Wales that understands the concerns of ordinary people”.
The former Tory councillor was still working for Welsh Conservative MS Tom Giffard as constituency support staff at the time of her defection.
A Tory source told Nation.Cymru that Cllr O’Brien had up until recently intended to stand in the 2026 Senedd election for the Welsh Conservatives.
It is understood she had already gone through the Conservative Party’s vetting process to take the number two spot on the Tories list of candidates for the Gwyr Abertawe seat but later backtracked.
Her former employer – Tom Giffard – is the lead candidate for the new super constituency.
Based on current polling, the Conservatives are unlikely to win two seats in Gwyr Abertawe at the upcoming Welsh election.
‘Scary’
Cllr O’Brien has been rumoured to have been promised the number one spot on Reform’s list of candidates for the constituency.
The former Conservative councillor stands a far better chance of winning a Senedd seat under the Reform banner than if she stood for the Tories.
Reform UK says the party has not yet officially selected any candidates for next year’s Senedd election.
On August 1, Cllr O’Brien posted a message to Facebook telling constituents she was leaving her communications officer role – a move she described as “scary” because she had “nothing lined up”.
We understand that a vetting process for some of Reform’s potential Senedd candidates took place over Friday and Saturday last week (August 15 and 16).
In a video posted online on Monday, O’Brien made light of her switch to the right-wing party saying it was “business as usual”.
She later brushed off constituents concerns about her defection claiming her work would “remain exactly the same” regardless of the party she belonged to.
We asked Cllr O’Brien if this were the case, why did she defect to another party.
We also asked if there was any truth to the rumours that she had been promised the number one spot on Reform’s list for the Gwyr Abertawe seat – Cllr O’Brien did not respond.
Reform UK declined to comment.
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Ah yes, the master plan: wipe out your own voter base. Brilliant
Blimey, how high was her blood boiling at? Inciting murder now.
She’s clearly living up to the Reform stereotype!!
Reform should beware – if she’s as calculating and opportunistic as her defection to them suggests she could dump them just as quickly if a better political opportunity comes along.
Never trust a ship jumper.
Presumably this includes those claiming state pension benefits so is just an extension of Boris Johnson’s inhuman plan to cut the eye watering economy crippling state pension benefits bill by letting Covid rip.
Of course you can avoid benefits by grifting off the public purse and jumping ship with a broken moral compass when the iceberg for your party is on the horizon.
Joins a party which supports putting down the entire population of Gaza, the burning of Mosques and hotels, advocates the putting down of British people of her choice, paid for an education and didn’t get one. Not fit for any public service role so this is where a DBS check comes in. If I had written anywhere that some people should be put down, I would fully expect to be ruled out of the jobs market so our national Parliament must bar her from standing for election to it. Someone like this cannot be anywhere outside of a prison cell.
So she’s a failure, vile, nasty, dishonest, a proven racist and now advocating execution of the poor???
Sounds like all of the qualities that Reform like in a supporter/member.
This is the reason why decent Welsh people absolutely cannot allow reform supporters into their communities. This is the type of influence that parents around definitely keep away from children.
Difficult… who do I hate more … people like her, or the men who came up with Benefit Street and the Exec who Green-Lighted the series?
OK, so why is she allowed to stand in any party? Surely calling for the death of a group of people instantly precludes participation?
What a lovely human being!
Eugenics and social cleansing. The amoral pseudo-philosophy of the concentration camp. Haven’t we heard this before?
Note that Reform’s refusal to comment should actually be considerably telling of their lack of transparency. I will certainly not be voting for them in the next election.