Reform to host Wales conference and regional events as it eyes up Senedd
Reform UK is to hold events in Wales, Scotland, and across the English regions, as it eyes up representation in the Senedd and town halls, Nigel Farage has said.
The Reform leader announced a Welsh conference, a Scottish gathering, and regional events in the North East and South West, as the party rounded off its national conference.
Mr Farage on Friday laid out a plan to professionalise the party, giving its members a stake in its ownership.
He also pointed to the Liberal Democrats’ campaigning success as a model to follow and said he hoped Reform could set up a similar local branch structure in the future.
Insisting upon the need for the party to professionalise in his closing conference speech on Saturday, Mr Farage said: “There is a limit to what the leadership team and the professional management structure can bring you.
“Yes, of course, we can make the big arguments. Yes, of course, we can make the news.
“Yes, of course, we can dominate social media in a way the other parties couldn’t even consider, and yes of course, with a small professional team we can put together unbelievable stage sets and conferences like this.
“But that only takes us so far.”
He then spoke of the need to establish Reform’s roots across the UK, announcing first a conference in Wales on November 8 at Newport’s Celtic Manor Hotel.
A November 9 conference in Exeter will follow, as will one on November 11 in the North East.
On November 30, Mr Farage said his deputy Richard Tice and others would host an event in Scotland.
Senedd
Reform is eyeing up the Senedd, Wales’ Parliament, because the proportional voting system there makes it easier for the party to gain a greater number seats than at Westminster, where it won five constituencies in July’s general election.
The system has, in the past, benefitted Ukip, a party Mr Farage used to lead, and could stand to benefit his new party further as the voting system in Wales will be tilted towards a more proportional system at the next Senedd election.
On Friday, he told reporters Reform will need to win “hundreds” of council seats to classify next year’s local elections as a success.
Asked by reporters at the party conference in Birmingham what his benchmark for success would be at the local polls, he said: “I’ve got my own little private thought on that, but we will need to win hundreds for it to be a success. It’ll have to be hundreds, and that’s the goal. That’s the end.
“And as I said a moment ago organisationally, that’s a huge feat, but we do have 266 branches that either have been set up, or will be, they’re in process. And without branches, you can’t sign nomination papers, you can’t do anything.”
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So Nigel will be coming down the M4 and popping over Pont Carlo for the short drive to the Celtic Manor for a celebration of Anglo hubris. Let us hope that there are not too many immigrants on the road that day or Nigel will have to unleash his fury on them. Either way, I’m sure the supine media will be publicising this event and vox pops around Newport will allow people to tell the journalists how “Nigel is the only one who tells the truth”, if you know what we mean – nudge! nudge! wink! wink!
Huh. Wont open office in Clacton (because the speaker of the HoC didn’t say it would be a bad security risk but nige did…..) but likes big conferences.
Will attendees be bussed in from Clacton?
Best not to be too hasty in dismissing the appeal that Reform might have in certain areas of Wales – and, I suspect, not solely ones where voters have been inclined to vote Tory.
But there’s always the bright side that would go alongside more votes for Reform – quite inevitably it’ll mean less votes for Conservatives!
Tories in the Senedd can be viewed as a joke, Reform in the Senedd is another kettle of fish.
Farage claims to have weeded out the extremist element from Reform but having read some of the bile being spouted at its Trumpist conference this week, we’ll end up with a return to the bad old days of Hamilton and his band of Kippers.
On the other hand any MS’s they get might play follow my leader and just turn up now and again for shames sake.
God help us!
Not a heartening prospect, for sure. But I think that it’s one that has to be taken seriously. In my local constituency last July Reform secured roughly double the number of votes that Plaid Cymru got. And Electoral Calculus recently revealed polling suggesting that at a Westminster election held now, Llanelli would send the Reform candidate to Westminster, and not the Labour one.
I welcome reform, if they can knock some sense into the so called Senedd.
We’ve been through this before, with Hamilton, Reckless, and a few other anti-Wales types who are opponents of devolution but are happy to take the salary until shown the door after a Senedd election. Wales has enough problems; it doesn’t need to be plagued by these people. Unfortunately, they have a central platform — opposition to unregulated immigration — that will win them seats both in Wales (thanks to PR’s latest reincarnation) and even more so across the border. In Cymru, they will temporarily replace the Tory Welsh branch as the main party of ‘englandandwales’ assimilation for the minority of… Read more »
You are a misnomer.
Reform have an MP that is used to knocking people. Lawbreakers as lawmakers.
History shows us that in difficult times political extremism kicks in to serve those with a delusion belief in demanding the persecuting of others, whether it’s nasty right or loony left, we’ve unfortunately suffered from both extremes in Cymru.
Reform only exist because the established Unionist parties ( and Plaid) have spent too much time sleeping on the job or chasing distractions. Real social and community grievances get exploited and the focus shifted onto likes of asylum seekers, or illegal immigrants. No mention of greedy globalist banksters and their pals now ripping up our country exploiting one of the least efficient modes of renewable energy. Probably because some of Reform’s leaders or backers are in deep into the exploitation.
Note the cynical choice of date in Scotland. To make it backfire, Yes Scotland need to organise a MASSIVE, LOUD, HUGELY attended St Andrews Day event to outnumber and drown out the intruders.