Newly elected Reform councillor sends warning to Welsh Labour
Twm Owen, local democracy reporter
Wales’ first elected Reform UK councillor has claimed his council by-election victory means no Labour seat in the country is safe.
Stuart Keyte won the Trevethin and Penygarn seat on Labour dominated Torfaen Borough Council in the election called following the resignation of a councillor from the ruling group which retains a majority of 17.
The former army major, who won the seat from Labour by nearly 200 votes, said: “I would imagine there isn’t a Labour councillor, Assembly Member or MP who thinks their seat is safe if Trevethin and Penygarn is no longer a safe seat and perhaps then we can have a realisation councillors, AMs and MPs are supposed to be servants not the bosses, they are not the masters supposed to impose an ideology.”
Though the February 13 by-election is the first time Reform, which was rebranded from leader Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, has won a seat at an election in Wales the new councillor will join an established group at the Civic Centre in Pontypool as three previously independent councillors joined Reform in August last year.
Crude songs
Its council group leader David Thomas hit the headlines on the eve of the by-election when Reform denied crude songs, posted online from more than a decade ago, and credited to him, and others, and linked to a record label he ran had been composed by Cllr Thomas.
The Labour leader of Torfaen council, Anthony Hunt, said Cllr Thomas should apologise and Labour MP for neighbouring Monmouthshire Catherine Fookes called for him to resign.
On the day of the election Cllr Thomas, and his two fellow Reform councillors were embroiled in a row over the opening of a Lidl supermarket in their Llantarnam ward in Cwmbran earlier in the week. The supermarket said there hadn’t been an official opening.
Cllr Keyte said he had no concerns about the row over the ‘happy hardcore’ dance tracks credited to his council group leader. He said: “It’s not my type of music I’m more of a classical music type. It’s not something that concerns me.
“I take it for what it is, I believe it’s a smear campaign,” said the new councillor who added he had been “too focused” on his campaign to raise it with Cllr Thomas, who has been a prominent supporter in the by-election.
He added: “It didn’t seem to be an issue when Mr Thomas was a Labour councillor.”
‘Farcical’
He also said it is “farcical” to suggest his colleagues would have attended a supermarket opening with their own scissors and ribbon and for staff to have posed for photographs with them.
The semi-retired 64-year-old, who has been a volunteer with the Citizens Advice Service in Cwmbran and in Pretoria in South Africa, said he had “no doubt” his victory is a signal of potential further success in Wales, with the party targeting elections to the expanded Senedd next year.
He credited the 457 vote victory to “hard work put in by Reform members” and said: “Also I believe the frustration of residents of Pontypool they see things slowly, slowly decaying around them.
“They are looking for a change in support from somebody other than Labour or any other established parties for that matter.”
Cllr Keyte, who lives in Wainfelin, Pontypool said as a councillor he wants to “get back to basics and see the place cleaned up, fences put back up and get a police presence.”
Labour won both Trevethin and Penygarn seats at the 2022 local government elections, with the Conservatives the only other party standing. Its candidate finished 359 votes behind the second placed Labour councillor.
Turnout in 2022 was 23 per cent which is slightly below the 24.7 per cent of the electorate who voted in the by-election.
Trevethin and Penygarn by-election full result
Stuart Keyte, Reform UK, 457 elected
Toniann Phillips, Welsh Labour 259
Catherine Ann Howells, Independent 117
Louise Shepphard, Independent 114
Tony Clark, Green Party 25.
The Welsh Conservatives won a by-election, also held on February, 13 to fill the New Inn Upper vacancy on Pontypool Community Council.
It was also called due to the resignation of former Labour councillor Sue Malsom.
New Inn, Upper by-election full result
Stephen John Senior, Welsh Conservatives 225 elected
Sarah Evans, Welsh Labour 166
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They broke us with Brexit, so what are the demob blue suited/uniformed spiv-minders going to break next…
Two other things stand out from this vote for next year. The utter waste that is voting for the Green Party in Wales, splitting the left of centre vote and giving more seats to Reform and the non-existence of a Plaid candidate (the Party of Wales?), which should be a wake up call all those predicting a Plaid majority.
Absolutely right.
I have no brief whatsoever for that snake oil salesman supreme Farage or his party but this is a staggering result – as was the tories winning a seat in pontypool. And if these results are a portend of what’s to come in the senedd elections next year – and all the polling evidence suggests they are – then Wales’ parliament will look unregnisable to those of us who have always regarded Wales as being a left of centre country. And that Plaid couldnt even muster a candidate in the kind of south wales valley community we know we should… Read more »
We may scoff at the Americans for voting in felon Trump but what are we doing here? Voting in the same sect of rightwing extremists. The people of Cymru need to watch how Trump’s tariffs are going to affect inflation and the cost of living in the states before putting an x next to a reform candidate next year. However, Plaid Cymru need to up a gear if we are to form the next Welsh government.
The Church in Wales needs to up its game otherwise we are going to become a branch of the Church of the American Right…
Get the Assembly of Trwmp’s God out of our Senedd…
Agree. I get the survey results undertaken by the polling agency Electoral Calculus e-mailed to me. Their latest poll suggests that if a Westminster election were to be held right now, a whole raft of Welsh constituencies, from Ynys Môn and Clwyd North through Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr and Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, and down to both Newport seats and Llanelli too, will, on their polling evidence, return a Reform MP if a general election were to be held now. The prediction is that Reform would win seats from all the other parties. OK, the next Westminster election’s a long… Read more »
This is a warning that fascists don’t come wearing black uniforms & jackboots to steal your freedoms from you anymore. Both the Labour party in Wales & Plaid Cymru especially need to wake up & shout out loud every day about these vile & malignant people spouting their one & only policy of division & hate. Forget the tories, they’re a busted flush. Reform are the real enemy within ever ready to spout their divisive rhetoric with a straight faced man of the people charm offensive that unfortunately, too many of the hard of thinking fall for all too often.… Read more »
How can PlaidCymru be seen as a serious contender when they can be bothered to stand?
My guess is that there’s been too little support for Plaid in that area for the party to have organized. You need a candidate and at least some minimal grass-roots activist base to mount even a very basic campaign.
John. May I say that you’ve simply provided an excuse. There was nothing to stop P C putting up a candidate – electoral law no longer requires a candidate to reside in the ward or I believe, even in the council area. Putting up a candidate, even if from far, far away is better than no candidate at all but does provide a working basis and measure of support, or otherwise. A by-election is due soon for Swansea City Council, a seat within the Gower constituency, traditionally a strong P C area. If there’s no candidate then P C will… Read more »
It’s not an excuse – it’s just a hard fact, in terms of electoral politicking. For sure Plaid, or for that matter any other party or ‘independent’ individual that you might care to think of, can put up what, in the trade, are termed ‘paper’ candidates; but if neither the individual nor their party – if they have one – have little or no profile or recognition in the local community, then very few people will vote for them. I know from experience, having been an activist for a political party – I was living in the north-west of England… Read more »
I’m not sure how long this thread lasts but I think a brief response is needed. The points you make are entirely correct, but that does not excuse Plaid Cymru from standing, even with a “paper” candidate. How else will the party get it’s message across- assuming it has one. It might even have found support upon which to build in that community. We will never know. To some extent your response supported my argument. The impression given in the article is that the winning candidate was totally unknown before the election. What got him elected was the publicity around… Read more »
You make entirely fair points, with which I wholly agree. Bu on the other hand I know from experience that political parties desirous of standing even a ‘paper’ candidate in a local government election can struggle to find anyone ready and willing to stand in their name – and that can be so even when their party has a reasonable local profile and when it’s had some occasional electoral success in the past. And though I don’t know the specific electoral history of the Trevethin and Penygarn ward, I suspect that it might well be that Plaid has had no… Read more »
Earlier this month the First Minister told Sky News ‘Frankly there’s nothing Welsh about Reform they’re very much I think an English focused party’. How come they are winning here then?
An English focused party ? You mean just like Labour ?
My guess on that is (a) widespread voter frustration against the traditional political status quo – the ‘a curse of all your houses’ syndrome – and (b) that rather a lot of folk in Wales still instinctively feel ‘British’ as well as, or even perhaps more than, they feel Welsh.
If the existing party’s represents the electorate so well then why is Reform gaining traction in Wales? Voters are so happy with labour, torys, plaid, greens, liberals, that they just fancy voting for Reform??
Same reason Vapes are, I expect…
Well, the Senedd deciding to ban GBNews because it “didn’t reflect our values” certainly made a difference in stopping the Reform/Farage message getting through to the electorate. Not.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “bigots” at the voters will not win you votes. Quite the opposite. Unless Welsh Labour get a grip (eg ask Morgan McSweeny to help out), it’ll be a complete disaster next year.
Jeez, even the New York Times has written about this result.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/world/europe/reform-uk-wales-farage.html
Agree.
Personally I despise the faction which GB News represents; but it’s a hard fact of political and democratic life that you defeat your opponents by utilizing better arguments than they can offer rather than just by taking the line of ‘I hate what you stand for so I’ll make every effort to suppress what you’re saying’.
With 231 votes going to independents, what would’ve happened with a preference voting system. It’s astonishing we don’t give people the opportunity to say who they’d prefer instead if their first choice is eliminated. At least the winner could say they were backed by a majority unlike this result where 53% clearly didn’t want Reform.
Anyone notice that in both areas the Plaid Cymru candidate’s name was written in invisible ink.
ER sorry…there were no Plaid Cymru candidates.