Does Wales really want Wales to be run by Nigel Farage from England?

Martin Shipton

Imagine, for a moment, a Welsh Government run remotely from England by Nigel Farage.

Not that long ago such a suggestion would have been seen as a wet dream of the unelectable far right – a social media fantasy embraced by the cerebrally challenged who have no real idea how politics works.

But a series of recent polls show Reform UK vying with Labour and Plaid Cymru for top spot in terms of vote share at next year’s Senedd election, with the Conservatives not far behind.

Translating such a level of support into seats will be far easier under the new Closed List PR electoral system than under First Past The Post or the hybrid system we’ve used since the National Assembly was established in 1999. Yet we’ve also seen Britain-wide polls putting Reform in the lead for a Westminster election.

And then the other day we learnt that Farage has decreed that, if it’s in a position to form a government, Reform should only go into a coalition with the Conservatives if they – the Tories – accept a subordinate role as the junior partner.

Tipping point

Have we reached a tipping point where fantasy politics has tipped over into reality? There’s certainly a case to be made for such a view.

It’s therefore time to treat the threat posed by Reform seriously – something which Welsh Labour hasn’t been prepared to do. So far, their disdainful dismissal of Reform has been based on the fact that they have no leader in Wales and that they are essentially an English nationalist party of no relevance to Wales.

Yet the fact is that a significant part of the electorate doesn’t seem to think that matters. For them, Nigel Farage is an affable pied piper who, like trusting children, they are happy to follow.

The task of the other parties in the period between now and the Senedd election in May 2026 is to point out not simply the absurdity of having someone from outside Wales becoming the de facto head of the Welsh Government, but the reality of what a Trump-allied administration with Farage playing the political equivalent of a shadow director might have in store for us.

Constitutional significance

The constitutional significance of what we may be facing does, nevertheless, have to be addressed.

Regardless of the fact that many of Reform’s supporters don’t care, the issue of outside control of our devolved government has been a big issue since before what is now the Senedd was set up.

To a large extent, the contest between Alun Michael and Rhodri Morgan to see who would lead Welsh Labour in the first Assembly election was about whether Tony Blair should have the right to impose his placeman on Wales.

Michael did his best to fend off the accusation that he was a puppet, but most party members voted for Morgan. Yet Michael got the job because the voting system used enabled an undemocratic stitch-up. Labour was punished in the ensuing Assembly election, failing to win the overall majority it hoped for, and setting up a situation that led to Michael being ousted in less than a year.

It was a good example of how an attempt to thwart the people’s will – or at least the will of party members – eventually backfired.

However, throughout the subsequent post-devolution period, and right up to the present, there have been tensions between the UK Government and the Welsh Government which have often touched on where power lies, or should lie.

While such tension has been more overt when there has been a Tory government at Westminster, it’s always existed to one degree or another behind the scenes.

Never before, however, have we been in a situation where a politician from outside Wales has been at front and centre of their party’s campaign at a devolved election.

Reform has said it is not electing a Welsh leader in advance of next year’s Senedd election, and it’s beyond doubt that pictures of Farage will appear on the party’s leaflets and, if news outlets agree, that he will represent it in interviews and debates.

Remotely

If Reform wins, we should be in no doubt that Farage will seek to run the Welsh Government remotely from London and Clacton, his faded seaside resort constituency in Essex.

All the Reform MSs will be without experience of government – even Mark Reckless, the former Tory, UKIP, Brexit Party and Abolish the Welsh Assembly politician who fancies standing for Reform in Caerphilly – and while Farage has no such experience either, he will see running Wales as a rehearsal for running the UK after the general election in 2029, which he is convinced Reform can win.

It’s difficult to imagine a more humiliating scenario for Welsh democracy than providing an egotistical foreigner with a pilot project for power elsewhere.

We’d be into uncharted territory, of course, and the mechanics of how Farage would wield such power are unknown. But the likelihood is that he’d be calling the shots when the issue is big enough for him to take an interest in. And we can be sure that if a Reform MS dared to disagree with a Farage edict, they’d quickly be told that their presence in the Senedd was entirely attributable to riding on his coattails.

It’s equally important to consider the likely nature of Farage’s interventions. Inevitably they will stem from his world view, which is that of a right wing conservative who believes in deregulation, privatisation and – in common with his mentor Donald Trump – the dismantling of “Big Government”.

Paradoxically, as we have seen in the United States since Trump re-took power, weakening regulatory standards necessitates strong action from the executive.

Public services

Most Reform supporters in Wales complain about public services in Wales – something that requires extra funding, not less, as Farage’s world view would demand.

There’s another paradox in the rise in support for Reform on the strength of Farage’s supposed charisma. It coincides with the increasing realisation by the Welsh and British electorates that Brexit has brought no benefits and has been economically damaging. Recently a mega-poll showed that every constituency in Wales, and indeed in Britain, has greater support for prioritising better trading links with the EU than with the US.

No wonder Farage doesn’t want to discuss Brexit any more. His standard response when asked about its failure to deliver the benefits that were promised is to berate the questioner, saying that Brexit is “ancient history” and ignore the negative consequences for businesses and individuals.

Labour has got itself into a mess with its ridiculous refusal to contemplate rejoining the European single market and customs union, making it difficult for it to attack Farage and Reform over the Brexit disaster.

In the run-up to next year’s Senedd election it will therefore be for other parties, most notably Plaid Cymru, to expose Farage as one of the foremost architects of a policy that has failed Wales so badly.

Why would anyone in their right mind vote to put such a charlatan in power in Wales?