Reform ‘parachute’ candidate once visited the area she hopes to represent when she was 7

Martin Shipton

A former Tory Westminster candidate from England who now tops a Reform UK Senedd list told a party colleague her only visit to the area she hopes to represent had been a trip to Trecco Bay when she was seven years old.

Sarah Cooper Lesadd is virtually guaranteed a seat in the Senedd as a result of Nigel Farage’s decision to award her the number one slot on Reform UK’s list of candidates for the Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg constituency, which covers the Westminster seats of Bridgend and Vale of Glamorgan.

Her main opponent, Plaid Cymru councillor Mark Hooper, said Ms Lesadd’s candidacy proved that Reform cared nothing for Wales and treated its people with contempt.

Less than two years ago Ms Lesadd, who is in her early 30, was the Conservative general election candidate in Coventry East, where she came second to Labour’s Mary Creagh. At the time she said her ambition had been to beat Reform UK into third place, which is what happened.

When the original list of Reform Senedd candidates was released, Ms Lesadd was allocated second place on the party’s list for the Afan Ogwr Rhondda constituency, but it is understood that local Reform members were unhappy about her negative comment about the party when she was a candidate in Coventry.

Cllr Owain Clatworthy, who himself resigned from Reform earlier this week, alleging he had been bullied, said: “I met her when she was doing her assessment to be a Reform candidate. She had paid £150, but didn’t pass the first time. She paid another £150 and passed, but she wanted higher marks that would enable her to get number one or number two slots, so she paid for a third round of assessment.

“I asked her whether she had ever been to Bridgend, and she told me she had visited Trecco Bay – a holiday resort at Porthcawl – when she was seven. That is not going to go down well with people, who want candidates who know the area and its communities.”

Ms Lesadd’s LinkedIn page has just been deleted, but it showed that she had worked for two years from 2022 to 2024 as an assistant to Vicky Ford, the then Tory MP for Chelmsford in Essex who lost her seat in the 2024 general election.

She has also worked for the Church of England.

In 2016, having been a student at Cambridge University, Ms Lesadd spoke out against sexism in the university’s Conservative Association, where she had been the communications and publicity officer. She told the student newspaper Varsity: “From the moment I was elected, I feel that I have been undermined and in committee meetings I have been constantly talked over by men. I have been actively ignored by a number of members.

“At a committee dinner last term, the two women were sat on their own at the end of the table. There was another dinner that one of the committee held at Churchill; I was the only elected member who wasn’t invited.”

There is no indication that Ms Lesadd has any connection with Wales, nor is there any information about precisely when she defected from the Tories to Reform.

Margaret Thatcher tribute

In October 2025 she attended an event at the Conservative Party conference where members of the Conservative Women’s Association paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher, who would have been 100 last year. Bloomberg, which carried an article about the event, made it clear that Ms Lesadd was not a member of the party at the time.

She was quoted saying: “With the challenge of Reform, a lot of people here are genuinely wondering what comes next.” She said a lot of her friends were either interested in Farage’s outfit or had already made the jump, adding: “I think the party needs to be very careful not to get into a trap of the Margaret Thatcher thing and looking into the past to answer the questions of tomorrow.”

Mark Hooper, the lead candidate for Plaid Cymru in Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg, said: “The message is getting across to some people who had intended to vote for Reform that the party cares nothing for Wales and is importing people from outside to take seats in the Senedd. They are treating the people of Wales with contempt, and that message is being increasingly understood. I can sense it on the doorstep.”

We sent emails to Reform UK and Ms Lesadd asking what connection she had with Wales.
Reform UK did not respond.

Later Ms Lesadd sent us an email in which she stated: “I was not visiting Wales at age 7. I was born in south Wales and was in the care system in the Pontypool/Cwmbran/Newport area until I was 7 years old, when I was adopted and moved away from Wales.

“I didn’t choose to leave – I was a child. I was removed.

“I have chosen to return to represent the country where I was born and spent my earliest years.”.