The new leader of Reform UK Wales lives in Bath, not Wales

Martin Shipton

The newly appointed leader of Reform UK in Wales hasn’t moved back to his home town in the Valleys, but has bought a £1m house near Bath, we can reveal.

Dan Thomas, the former Conservative leader of Barnet council in London, was introduced on February 5 by Nigel Farage as his handpicked leader in Wales.

Farage told the Reform event in Newport: “He has not been brought into Reform ‘from the outside’.

“He has voluntarily left London, come back to the Valleys, living in Islwyn, come back to his home, and he’s done that because he loves Wales.

“He’s done that because he wants his children to grow up being Welsh.

“I had lots of other candidates but none with the battle-hardened experience of running big budgets which is exactly what he did when he ran Barnet council.”

Thomas resigned at the end of last year after 19 years as a councillor, saying he moved away from Barnet so that he and his wife could raise their young sons in the countryside and live closer to their families in south Wales.

Blackwood-born Thomas told the conference in Newport: “After 27 years I’m back home. Raising my two boys in the south Wales valleys. I’ve come back to where I belong.”

However, a source contacted us to say: “I read the NationCymru article about Dan Thomas, the new Welsh Reform leader. What he omits to tell is that he lives in a £1m house in Bath. The ‘countryside’ is not Wales. I feel this is a calculated misdirection if not blatant lie and one your readers would like to know about.

“He moved there last year from London – his parents live in Blackwood. He doesn’t. They [Thomas and his wife] sold their house in Edgware in London for a huge profit and moved to Bath last year.”

Mr Thomas was the Tory leader of Barnet council until 2022, when the party lost power to overall Labour control for the first time since the borough was established in 1964. He defected to Reform UK in June 2025 and in December 2025 resigned his seat on the council.

At the time his successor as leader of the now opposition Conservative group on the council, Cllr Peter Zinkin, told the London Standard: “He informed us several months ago that this would be his final year serving as a councillor in Barnet, having moved to the West Country to be closer to his family and raise his children there.”

Edgware

Nation.Cymru contacted Cllr Zinkin, who told us: “Our understanding is that he sold his house in Edgware and moved to the Bath area, where he is working for a large financial institution.

“He has two very young children, the older of the two being three or four years old.”

Blaenau Gwent Labour MS Alun Davies said: “When he was announced as Reform’s leader in Wales, we were told that after spending his adult life in England he had returned to his roots in the Valleys. Now we learn that isn’t true, but that he moved from London to the Bath area. At the beginning of their Senedd election campaign, their narrative has been built on a fraud and a lie.

“As James Evans [the Tory MS who defected to Reform this week] said quite recently, Reform is full of hypocrites who have no principles.

“The last time this shower had seats in the Senedd, when they stood as UKIP, they were led by Neil Hamilton, who lived in a mansion in Wiltshire. This time their leader lives 10 miles nearer to Wales. At this rate they will have a leader who actually lives in Wales by 2050.”

Press team

We wrote to Reform UK’s press team, stating: “We have been told that Dan Thomas does not live in Wales, but in the Bath area.

“We shall be publishing a story to this effect later today.

“Could you please answer the following questions:

“Why was it stated at the Newport event that Reform’s newly announced Wales leader Dan Thomas lives in Wales, when he in fact lives in the Bath area in a house he has bought for around £1m since selling his previous home in Edgware?

“We have been told that he is working for a large financial institution from his home in the Bath area. Why was this not made clear?

“As you will be aware, Mr Thomas’s ability to stand for election to the Senedd depends on his living in Wales at what is his primary residence. Is it his intention to claim that his primary residence is his father’s home in Blackwood, and does he honestly believe that complies with the law?.

“What are the circumstances under which he became leader of the party in Wales? Was the first approach made by him or the party, and when did this occur?

“When was it decided by Mr Farage that Mr Thomas would be appointed the leader and on what basis was the decision taken?

“What consideration was given to the aforementioned issue of residency, and what conclusion was reached?

“Please respond promptly.”

We have not received a response.