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.
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Well, that is strangely similar to Farage, the owner of Reform UK Ltd, who claimed he had bought a house in his constituency of Clacton – it is owned by his girlfriend, although it is unclear where she got the money from.
Grifters gotta grift, they can’t help themselves!
If he is not on a local electoral register in Wales then he can’t stand in the Senedd election.
Hilarious!
Yes, but you can register to vote in multiple areas (although only actually vote once). So he could appear on the roll in Blackwood and Bath. I hope the Senedd rules about having to live in Wales i.e. primary residence, deal with this. The Council electoral team will verify candidates’ qualification to stand. Oddly, the deadline for candidates to be nominated is prior to the deadline to register to be on the electoral roll.
I suspect Reform UK already knows about this. Unless he actually moves to Blackwood (or elsewhere in Wales) by the nomination deadline in April, this could well be part of their playbook. They can then play the victim card, accusing the ‘Cardiff Bay establishment’ of rigging the rules to stop outsiders from challenging the mainstream parties.
Residency – the fact of living in a place or in the case of Reform their definition is pull the wool over the peoples eyes. The Act that controls the election is Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024, and section 6 just says: 6 Disqualification from being a Member of the Senedd or a candidate In Part 1 of Schedule 1A (disqualification) to the 2006 Act, after paragraph 7 insert— Persons not registered in electoral register at an address in Wales 8A person who is not registered in the register of local government electors at an address within a Senedd… Read more »
If the law dictates that someone running for a seat in the Senedd must have a primary residence in Cymru and Mr Thomas does not fully show that – he must not be allowed to run. He either moves and lives here permanently or he drops out.
What a F@#%ing joke, the first words out of his mouth are lies. Not even sure why I’m surprised.
Living in Bath, I’m sure Thomas’s children will be as Welsh as bara brith in no time at all! Seriously though, it will be an absolute disgrace if he’s allowed to stand for election in May when he clearly isn’t residing in Wales, contrary to the rules governing Senedd elections. I suspect Thomas doesn’t think his homeland is good enough for him and his family any longer. He’s just one more Deform grifter.
Just a thought. Would or could he ‘buy’ the ‘family home’ from his parents, thereby registering the property as his. Or does he have to live in it as well ?
Is there a law preventing him from doing this ?
Reform have not published a candidate list as yet. Farage was the leader long before he became an MP, so don’t assume this man will appear on a voting slip near you. They have James Evans and the lovely Laura for that.
The drip, drip, drip of the con man! The grifter of the grifter. Rules are for the guidance of wise men but snake oil salesman doesn’t give a hoot!
Well that went well.
To stand for the Senedd you must be resident in Wales and on the voting register.
The only choice you have, Mr Thomas,
is to buy a family home in Wales – and move your family there, BEFORE registering/ being selected as a candidate. I’m sure the money will be no problem for Reform, but it might be a bit difficult to ensure the money to pay for the home is ‘washed’ sufficiently to be disguised as yours. And remember, a SECOND home isn’t enough; it has to be your one and only PRIMARY residence
I seem to recall that at the launch of Dan Thomas as Reform Leader in Wales at Newport it was mentioned that he’d moved back to the ‘valleys’. Who said that?
Bath is set in the Avon Valley. There you go, sorted !
Ŵps!
I thought that they’d changed the law so that MSs had to live in Wales to qualify as an MS. Can someone confirm that?
Become a politician and you too can become wealthy beyond your dreams …… overnight. Seriously, someone needs to investigate the finances of our politicians and how they suddenly gather so much wealth.
He actually has a really good job with a bank, so managed to do well for himself before entering politics – that makes a change from the likes of Kinnock and Drakeford 😐 🤔
Easy mistake to make . He most probably got confused between Wells and Wales and accidentally bought a house in Bath , poor man .
May be he plans to move the Welsh border further East to include Bath. 😂 Watch out for that in the party manifesto.. Everything they touch turns to a disaster. We can not let these lying grifters take over our country. Please follow the example of the lovely people of Caerphylli.
Hiraeth 🤣
The sheer neck ,arrogance and contempt of them all
He does not want to live amongst us
No wonder they kept that under wraps hoping they would get away with it
You can just imagine the conversation
Dont worry kids son we won’t have to live in Pontllanfraith we can go near Monmouth its like England anyway and you won’t have to learn Welsh
Dad We are definitely not going over the bridge
Oh no! That’s torn it 🙂
Well done Adrian, you’re getting there slowly!!!
Have you been hacked Ady Wady?
Who are you, and what have you done with the real Adrian??
You couldn’t make it up. If Cymru ends up voting these p*sstakers into power then we are absolutely screwed. I wouldn’t trust them to run a bath.
Soooooo, bus, train, milage expenses, (Laura can advise on them)…….
Seen this?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25822949.reform-uk-treasurer-nick-candy-named-dozens-epstein-files/
Worth contextualising to how many holiday homes other senior politicians in the Senedd have, including a leader of one of the other parties!
Can we please have people in public office that we trust because they are truthful and care about residents and our future. This man is neither truthful nor in politics to serve the country.
Even more evidence of they couldn’t run a bath let alone the country
A million pound home sounds impressive until you add the words “in Bath” to the end.
How much did he get for the one he sold in London? £1m is still a lot of dosh whatever it buys.
Wonder when they going to bring their MP Lee Anderson down to preach to the Welsh voters. Maybe they wont. Because remember Wales suffered during the miners strike while Lee was a Scab. He will get a proper reception.