Reform MS blasts Plaid motion despite backing it himself
Emily Price
The Welsh Conservatives have ridiculed a Reform MS who attacked them for supporting a Plaid Cymru motion – despite having done the same himself.
Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd MS Iain McIntosh lashed out at the Tories following a key Senedd vote on Plaid Cymru’s flagship childcare policy.
The proposal would provide 20 hours of universal childcare a week for children aged between nine months and four years.
Reform led a debate in the Senedd on Wednesday (June 12) in a bid to force Plaid to publish the full costings of its childcare plan along with a detailed timetable for its implementation within the party’s first 100 days in government.
However, Reform’s motion failed to pass and a Plaid amendment got through instead – with both receiving Tory support.
The final motion included a point which attacked Reform UK for not including any childcare commitments in its own manifesto.
Bizarrely, Mr McIntosh and 10 fellow Reform MSs also backed the amended motion.
Despite having voted for it himself, the former Conservative later shared an AI-generated image on X portraying First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth tucked up in bed with Conservative leader Darren Millar.
“Vote Conservative, get Reform UK,” Mr McIntosh wrote.
The Tories in Cardiff Bay responded by publishing a screenshot of the Senedd voting record showing that Mr McIntosh had backed the same motion as them.
In a post to X, the Welsh Conservatives wrote: “This is Iain McIntosh. He voted for Plaid Cymru’s motion, then attacked us for doing the same. Don’t be like Iain.”
Why a third of Reform’s MSs voted for a motion that criticised their own party remains unclear.
Reform’s higher profile Senedd Members – such as leader Dan Thomas, James Evans, Laura Anne Jones, Jason O’ Connell and Chief Whip Llyr Powell – voted against the final motion.
However, Mr McIntosh, Andrew Griffin, Art Wright, Carmelo Colasanto, David Mills, Gareth Thomas, John Clark, Nigel Williams, Paul Marr, Steve Bayliss and Steven Rodaway voted in favour.
Nation.Cymru asked Mr McIntosh on Thursday (May 11) why he and his colleagues had supported the motion, and whether their backing reflected a strategy or confusion. We did not receive a response.
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What a clown 🤡
“By their deeds you will know them”, Matthew 7:16, as these extremist grifters are so keen to emphasise their “Judaeo-Christian” beliefs.
Doh! 🤦
Great to see the 3 groups of rats : Restore/Reform/Tories fighting within the same sack.
Give the sack an occasional kick to keep them biting each other.
Fancy Plaid wanting to improve childcare… woke pillocks!!!!!!
Improved childcare = reduced poverty which leads to improved education standards with leads to greater wealth creation.
And, did you not get the point of the post? Reform are idiots.
Ianto’s comment was meant as sarcasm, not as a criticism of Plaid Cymru’s childcare proposals, I think.
What is the role of Reform UK Senedd chief whip / Business Manager Llyr ‘Billy’ Powell in all of this? He receives a sizeable top-up additional salary for performing the role, but cannot instil any discipline in his fellow Senedd Members to get them to vote the right way! Is he up to the job?
What do you expect from someone whose only ‘executive’ skill set, was as a junior Leisure centre assistant in Pontardawe.Even booking squash courts was beyond him. Only non-political job he’s ever had.
Llyr doesn’t care about the role of whip, he proclaims the title as a way to grift and boost his own ego and “status” within the party ranks, Reform UK is not in the Senedd to serve Wales, only to undermine the institution and rob from the taxpayers.
The sheer amount of incompetency and lack of understanding is extremely baffling, they need to resign for their own sake, what an embarrassment to their own party & manifesto.
Apart from the fascist aspect, what would these incompetents have done to Wales if they had won the Senedd?
Staggering and embarrassing incompetence but let them get on with it. They are committing procedural suicide. We won’t have to worry too much about how much they hate Wales when they are killing themselves from within. Our country is way too big for these little squirts. They have been given the tools to work for our people but they are using them as s**g Brothers clubs to beat each others’ heads with. It was funny in the Whacky Races but not here. Cavemen!
To gleefully misquote the late George Carlin: Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realise the average Reform politician is stupider than that.
Don’t forget McIntosh was the councilor who said Powys should be open to tourists during covid because we had such low infection numbers, admirably backed up by that political genius Fay Jones, he also had a habit of resigning when he didn’t get his way, wonder if he’ll be so keen to resign now he has a £80,000 job,
I hope the reform supporters are paying close attention to the complete mess their incompetent and unqualified halfwits are making.
It’s reform, what do you expect?
Reform UK’s standard response to questions from the media is to not give a response.