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Welsh voters explain why they switched sides from Labour and Plaid Cymru to Reform

14 Jun 2025 5 minute read
A residential street in Lliedi, Llanelli (Image by Richard Youle)

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

Reform UK hasn’t quite parked its tanks in Wales but it’s been on manoeuvres and already come away with council by-election victories.

Just over a fortnight ago Reform UK’s Michelle Beer won a vacant Lliedi seat by a stretch, defeating Welsh Labour in what has been solid Labour territory going by the 2022, 2017 and 2012 council elections. She is Reform UK’s first Carmarthenshire councillor.

At last summer’s general election, Labour incumbent Nia Griffith held onto the Llanelli seat with 31.3% of the vote. But Reform UK’s Gareth Beer – Michelle’s husband – wasn’t a million miles away in second place with a 27.6% share. Reform UK, it seems, aren’t going anywhere.

A YouGov/ITV Wales poll last month had Plaid Cymru leading the race for the Senedd in 2026 with 30% of the vote, followed by Reform UK in second on 25%. Labour were third with 18%.

Winter fuel

Bellwether voter Stella Bartlett, of Lliedi, voted for Labour’s Ms Griffith last July and for Reform UK’s Mrs Beer on May 29.

Asked about the switch, she said: “It was because of what’s happening with Labour – they say one thing and do another. It was the way they took off money for winter fuel, and now they’re going to put it back, but not all of it.

“It’s the cuts and putting National Insurance up for the workers which they shouldn’t be doing. My granddaughter is a care worker and does a lot of overtime. When it comes to her pay, the tax is unbelievable.”

The 76-year-old added: “I met the Reform candidate (Mrs Beer) when she came to my door, and she was lovely. I also just happen to like Nigel Farage and what he is for. He seems down to earth, no airs and graces, like a normal person.”

Last autumn Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a rise in the level of National Insurance contributions paid by employers rather than employees to help plug what Labour claimed was a £22 billion black hole left by the previous Conservative Government. It came into effect in April this year, as did inflation-busting increases in the national living wage and minimum wage.

However, more people are slipping into the income tax bracket because of a freeze on the amount you can earn – known as the personal allowance – before the 20% basic rate applies.

All political decisions are trade-offs and the winter fuel hokey cokey seems to have left its mark on some voters.

Neil Thomas, of Llanelli, said he didn’t expect to receive winter fuel allowance when he is eligible in a few years’ time. The 62-year-old felt aggrieved that he was turned down for Personal Independence Payment following a medical assessment. Happily for him, he said his cousin appealed on his behalf and it was reinstated.

“I voted Labour at the last general election and always voted Labour locally – never again,” said Mr Thomas. “Next election, I will be voting for Reform.”

‘Straight-talking’

Mr Thomas said he liked what he’d seen of Reform UK and Nigel Farage on television. “He’s straight-talking. He speaks his mind,” he said. “He would be a good Prime Minister. The one we’ve got now, we don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

Would the Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton have Wales’ interests at heart, I asked? “We’ve got to wait and see,” said Mr Thomas.

Craig Morgan, of Llanelli, voted for Reform UK last July after previously voting Conservative. He said he didn’t feel the two traditionally strongest parties were “doing anything good” for people.

“They’re trying to do up Llanelli but it’s taking years,” said the 43-year-old. “I felt like a change was needed.” He said people needed better access to housing.

Mr Morgan added: “Nigel Farage is a character. He says things how they are, but thank God he’s not like Donald Trump, yet.”

Reservations

Asked if he’d had any reservations about voting for Reform UK, Mr Morgan didn’t say no but added that he didn’t want to get into a discussion about immigration.

Would he vote for Reform UK at next year’s Senedd elections? “I will see at the time,” he said.

Richard Thomas, 73, is a Reform UK convert and said levels of legal and illegal immigration concerned him. However he said he didn’t blame people for coming to the UK to seek work in the health and care sectors.

“If we didn’t have them our hospitals would be knackered,” he said. “There are also a lot of them at my mother’s care home – they’re better than our own people.”

Many years ago Mr Thomas, of Pontyates, a few miles north-west of Llanelli, worked at the nearby Cynheidre colliery.

He liked what he heard from the Reform UK leader when he visited Port Talbot on June 9, such as bringing blast furnaces back to the steelworks and allowing coal to be mined to power them.

“He spoke well at Port Talbot,” said Mr Thomas, who previously tended to vote for Plaid Cymru. “What’s wrong with burning coal? It’s the best heat we ever had in our house.”

Was he worried that Reform UK might over-promise and, if it were to hold sway in the Senedd or House of Commons one day, under-deliver? “It depends on how much money there is in the kitty then,” he replied.


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Fanny Hill
Fanny Hill
24 days ago

Unf*****g believable! What is the matter with you people?

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
24 days ago
Reply to  Fanny Hill

Self-harmers, place full of them as the last Brexit Decade has proven but those useless people in the Senedd need to hang their heads in shame…

Undecided
Undecided
23 days ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

This is the key point. When governments fail people for long and often enough they turn to extremes. So it is not only believable; but entirely predictable. Too many (on here and generally) don’t get it and the clock is now ticking very loudly. Rant about Farage as much as you want: it makes little or no difference.

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
23 days ago
Reply to  Fanny Hill

Here’s a polite way to swiftly get rid of a Reform UK caller at your door. ‘Sorry, I’m not part of the billionaire donor class so you and I have no mutual interest nor common ground for discussion. Goodbye’.

Fanny Hill
Fanny Hill
24 days ago

Remember that LBC phone in with Farage? The guy who told Nigel he used to be a Remainer? Farage asked him what had made him change his mind.
He replied“ I got kicked in the head by a horse!”
I rest my case.

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
23 days ago
Reply to  Fanny Hill

I do. Fabulous!

Peidiwch bradychu'ch gwlad
Peidiwch bradychu'ch gwlad
24 days ago

Their IQs dropping like flies

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
23 days ago

Every angler for votes who knocks your door will tell you they will do something if elected then won’t or can’t. N.F. bats exclusively for the £mn £bn shareholder tyranny, donor class – NOT YOU/ME. Personal allowance con referred to here. If it goes up to 20k, EVERYTHING will be privatised and cost fortunes. Nobody will see a single penny of the ‘slack’. It won’t happen. If ,like the many Brexit voters I heard myself, you want this island cleared of LEGAL blacks, browns, foreign accents and foreign speakers, that will not, cannot and must not happen. If in 2034,… Read more »

Jeff
Jeff
23 days ago

Reform have a lot of money for their spin and lies machine.

That is why.

They will never deliver.

Farage has a grift. He has never delivered. Apart from brexit. Farge likes to stand in front of posters with people a different colour to him and say they are the problem. Farge likes to kick off race riots.

But hey ho, he also attracts a lot of racists to his cause, the reform councillors that are getting exposed and you need to ask about the religious far right anti abortion group feeding him loot. Bye bye womens rights.
https://bylinetimes.com/2024/11/29/nigel-farage-teams-up-with-extreme-anti-abortion-group-and-calls-for-debate-on-restricting-abortion-rights-in-uk/

Ernie The Smallholder
Ernie The Smallholder
23 days ago

Oh no ! Some people don’t learn from history. Many of those older people weren’t told by their parents. The same crisis happened around 100 years ago. The debt crises that caused the crash in 2008 was caused by the same reasons as the Wall Street crash of 1929. This created the conditions for the growth of the fascism and the Nazis. The MAGA and the Blackshirts/Hitler youth are one and the same. In the 1930s there were Oswald Mosley; Today there is Nigel Farage. Think hard ! If you make the wrong decision you may lose the rights to… Read more »

Garycymru
Garycymru
22 days ago

I would have used the term “voters in Wales” rather than “Welsh voters” as I refuse to believe anyone Welsh would vote for an English nationalist party.
Being upset with Labour and the Tories is completely justified. Removing your own democracy and your country’s own right to self governance is somewhere between plain stupidity and cutting ones nose off to spite their face.

DAVID EDMUNDS
DAVID EDMUNDS
21 days ago

Its impossible all political parties are nuts as are councils

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