Reform Wales leader Dan Thomas interviewed by far-right Tommy Robinson supporter Richard Taylor

Martin Shipton

Reform UK Wales leader Dan Thomas agreed to be interviewed by one of Wales’ most notorious far-right activists following a rally this week in Merthyr Tydfil addressed by Nigel Farage.

Thomas, who refuses to answer awkward questions put to him by NationCymru and other news outlets who challenge him, happily chatted with Richard Taylor, who was removed earlier this year as leader in Wales of Advance UK, a breakaway far-right party founded by Ben Habib, a former deputy leader of Reform.

Taylor, who has previously stood for Westminster and the Senedd for the Brexit Party and the Abolish The Welsh Assembly Party, became known across the UK through his previously frequent appearances as a pundit on GB News.

A self-confessed teenage criminal, burglar and drug user originally from Llanelli, he wrote an autobiography about how he found Jesus in prison.

Subsequently he became a pastor at an evangelical church in Cwmbran, but he left suddenly following a financial dispute and – as he put it in a podcast – after he “committed adultery against [his] wife”.

In the 2019 general election he stood as the Brexit Party’s candidate in Blaenau Gwent, coming second to re-elected Labour MP Nick Smith, who was 8,647 votes ahead of him.

By 2021 he had defected to the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party. He stood for the Senedd, also in Blaenau Gwent, coming fifth with 1,364 votes (6.6% of the total vote). Sitting Labour MS Alun Davies was re-elected.

The anti-fascist group Far Right Watch Wales said in a statement circulated to its supporters: “The feelgood factor that Reform party bosses apparently felt after the UK general election, when the right wing populist party saw five MPs elected, must have evaporated when news reached them that they’d suffered a seismic defection in Wales with the announcement from Richard Taylor on his Facebook page that he was leaving the party in protest at its refusal to support Taylor’s political hero the far right grifter in-chief Tommy ’10 names and 10 criminal convictions’ Robinson.

“We are of course being jocular – word has reached us from inside Reform that party activists in Wales breathed a huge sigh of relief that someone with Taylor’s alarming personal history and dubious political past had publicly flounced out of the party because it isn’t extreme right wing enough for him.

“That alarming history includes Taylor’s threats to a Welsh journalist after an expose detailing claims against Taylor of the exploitation of vulnerable people at a church rehab programme he was involved in the days when he was a self styled pastor with an ‘evangelical church’ in Cwmbran. Taylor made the threat when he was standing as a candidate for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly party in the 2021 Senedd elections.

“[His] dubious political history shows a bewildering habit of swapping political parties … It wasn’t long before he was seeking new political pastures once again – jumping from the Wales haters of Abolish to Farage’s newly formed Reform party. And following his abandonment of Reform, and if the rumours are true that his recent move to Llanelli will see him stand for the Kippers [UKIP] in the area in the 2026 Senedd elections, it’ll mean he’ll have represented 4 different political parties in just a few years.

“It’s perhaps fitting that since moving to Llanell, Taylor has been regularly spotted ‘working out’ at a local gym with another far right felon – Dan Morgan, the Voice of Wales co-founder who received a suspended jail sentence for his part in a massive insurance scam which included defrauding elderly people out of their life savings.”

Richie & Rogue Unfiltered managed to grab an interview with Dan Thomas, Reform leader in Wales at their final rally in Merthyr Tydfil yesterday. @RichieandRogue @RogueUnfiltered @DanWalesReform pic.twitter.com/Lp6Ge7wju9

— Richie Taylor (@RWTaylors) May 6, 2026

On Wednesday May 6 Taylor posted to X a sycophantic interview he conducted with Dan Thomas the previous evening following the Merthyr rally.

Taylor told Thomas: “Your speech was fantastic. Thank you very much. I’ve watched all your debates … So what do you make of today? Most of the people that turned out are huge supporters as you saw, very uplifting.”

Thomas said: “You know, this is the last few days of the campaign now. It’s been exhausting. It’s been tiring, but we need to just squeeze that energy out now, that enthusiasm to get the vote out on Thursday.”

Cuts

Asked what cuts he would make, Thomas said he would impose a pay freeze on Welsh Government civil servants and cut their headcount by 10%

At the end of the interview, Taylor says: “Fantastic. So am I looking at the next First Minister of Wales?”

Thomas responds: “ I hope so, I hope so. Thank you for your support, I appreciate it.”

The pair then pose for a photograph together.