Reform’s Arron Banks questions whether a black person can be Welsh
Former Reform UK candidate and businessman Arron Banks has been accused of committing a hate crime after questioning whether a young black community organiser in Cardiff could be Welsh.
A video released by Plaid Cymru shows the organiser outside Cardiff Castle, expressing his support for the party.
Banks posted on X the comment: “Welsh lad?”
Plaid’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts responded, also on X, stating: “Reform donor and 2025 candidate for the West of England mayoral election thinks black people can’t be Welsh.
“Racism is rife within Reform. We must stop them from being the largest party in the Senedd. Only Plaid Cymru can stop them.”
A spokesperson for Reform UK pointed out that Banks had not in fact been a donor to the party. He did however bankroll the Leave EU pro-Brexit campaign group in the run-up to the 2016 referendum on EU membership, and donated to Nigel Farage’s earlier party UKIP. Last year he was Reform’s candidate to become the directly-elected mayor of the West of England Combined Authority, losing narrowly to the winning Labour candidate, Helen Godwin.
Reform donor and 2025 candidate for the West of England mayoral election thinks black people can’t be Welsh.
Racism is rife within Reform. We must must stop them from being the largest party in the Senedd.
Only @Plaid_Cymru can stop them. https://t.co/ovCb5Hqb0n pic.twitter.com/u4n5X5RvoA
— Liz Saville Roberts AS/MP (@LSRPlaid) April 27, 2026
A political source who contacted Nation.Cymru said: “What Banks has stated is a hate crime. Plaid should really be reporting it to the police.”
In the video, the young community organiser states: “My name is Bashir and I’m a community organiser from Butetown in Cardiff – and there’s something really important I need to tell you today.
“The Senedd election on May 7 is the most important election we’ve ever had in Wales. And this is a straight-up fight between Plaid Cymru and Reform.
“This is a choice between hope or division, substance or noise, ambition or chaos. Responsible leadership under Plaid Cymru or Donald Trump-style politics with Reform. You can’t risk Wales’s future being in the hands of a Reform government. It just doesn’t make sense. They will privatise the NHS, work for their billionaire mates and raise council taxes – just like what they’re doing in England.
“Don’t stay at home on May the 7th thinking everything is going to be OK. Plaid Cymru is the only party in Wales that can stop Reform. So on the 7th of May vote Plaid Cymru. Together we can stand up for Wales.
Racist comment
It is not the first time Banks has been accused of posting racist comments on social media.
Last year, during the mayoral campaign, Banks stood by a tweet he had made in 2017 in which he called Bristol “little Somalia”, going on to blame crime in the city on the Somali community and Romanians.
In the tweet he stated: “Take a stroll down any high street in a city in the UK, Bristol looks like little Somalia. Sod all integration and horrendous problems.”
A group of Bristolians protested against Banks outside an election hustings meeting in April 2025.
Asked about the tweet by BristolLive, he said: “It’s not to say all Somalians are bad people, but in the same way that Romanians are at the forefront of criminal activities in most cities, certainly Somalians in Bristol are at the forefront of crime in Bristol.”
He claimed that Home Office statistics showed that the Somalian community was 10 times more likely to commit serious crime than other communities. However, the Home Office confirmed that crime conviction statistics did not record the nationality of those convicted.
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Tell us you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist!
This is who Reform are.
And if you’re going to vote for them then you’ve decided that racism isn’t a redline for you.
Same bloke that bankrolled Farage?
Figures.
So far, so predictable. I’d be more interested in seeing his Tax Returns.
“He did however bankroll the Leave EU pro-Brexit campaign group in the run-up to the 2016 referendum“
Very true. And in the run up to said referendum he was in and out of the Russian embassy like a fart in a colander. I wonder whether Nathan Gill should have company.
I question whether Banks can be a human being
I went to a fairly large comprehensive school where a few of my peers were black. Never considered them any less Welsh than I am.
How ‘patriotic’ is giving a Lesotho government minister thousands of pounds in blood stained money so he could prospect for diamonds?
For those not aware, the first commercial venture of Arron Banks was to strip off the lead from a school roof, while he was still a pupil of that school.
His commercial ventures have followed similar moral and ethical values as he bankrolled the political business that is Nigel Farage.
We need to be aware of both when considering whether what spouts out of his mouth is worth even publishing.
Bashir is certainly Welsh if he says he is. Banks has shot himself in the foot here though by asking the question. He belongs to an eradicationist organisation which believes nobody is Welsh but will wear the nationality dictated by them. He may have huge sums of money. I hope that gives him comfort while he has to contemplate being an eternal and irretrieveable failure of a lifeform.
Banks certainly shot himself in the foot.
He should aim higher.
Of course, Aaron Banks owns a large mansion overlooking a game reserve near Pretoria in South Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DRSEQ5JBic
Suggest he check his own back door before dissing the black people of Wales.
Especially if the speak a language he doesn’t understand.
If he believes this he must believe the same about a Black English person, which I assume was his real dog whistle message that he knows he couldn’t say while Nigel is trying to pretend Reform isn’t a racist party.
Try telling Billy Boston or Glenn Webbe they are not Welsh.
Bashir has been speaking out for Butetown for years. I’d point out to Arron Banks that he represents the SOMALILAND community in Cardiff, who have been well integrated in Wales for over 100 years. Banks clearly makes the same error as so many people do of confusing Somalia (the former Italian colony where warfare and internecine atrocities abound), with Somaliland, the former British protectorate on the Horn of Africa, which is an independent, well-organised and flourishing democracy – but one which the British government STILL does not recognise!!
And yes, Bashir is Somali Welsh!
Da iawn Bashir!
Bashir 1-0 Banks.
I’m always nervous posting things like this because I understand how modern reductionist politics twists things to often say the opposite of what you’re actually saying. Around a decade ago, a UK-wide DNA survey showed that the DNA found in bodies from the last Ice Age, around 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, still exists today along both banks of the Menai. The coast of what is now Gogledd Cymru was where the indigenous people of these survived, it’s amazing how useful an inhospitable mountain range can be. That’s around 10,000 years before even the Celts are known to have started… Read more »
So who exactly IS Arron Banks? I think we deserve to be told. He’s wealthy – but look for youself at his back-story – expelled from two schools ( one for stealing lead from the roof – read for yoursef! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arron_Banksm
If it were a sick joke ridiculing Black people, Aaron Banks, it was deeply inappropriate. What will make me laugh, however, is seeing the faces of those clowns in Reform UK when Plaid Cymru wipes the smirks off come May 7th. #Ymlaen 🏴✊#VotePlaidCymruMay7th 🏴✊ #PutWalesFirstNotNigelFarage 🏴 #ReformUK 🏴 #NigelFarage 🏴 #DanThomas 🏴 #WelshNot ⛔
Aaron Banks cannot be Welsh and doesn’t get a vote