Don’t let culture wars hijack the Senedd election campaign
Martin Shipton
Something sinister is happening in Welsh politics in advance of next May’s Senedd election and it needs to be called out.
If Reform UK gets its own way, the election will be fought not on practical policies aimed at making Wales a fairer and more prosperous country, but on the basis of culture wars.
Llyr Powell, the Reform candidate in the Caerphilly by-election, gave us a flavour of what we can expect in a video he made immediately after delivering his nomination papers to the council offices.
His first words in the video were: “So it’s official. I’ve just put in my paperwork to be your Reform candidate in this by-election. I’m the only candidate prepared to take on Plaid and Labour’s Nation of Sanctuary policy and bring that money back to communities just like this in Caerphilly.”
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the constant demonisation by Reform and its Tory ally Andrew RT Davies of the Nation of Sanctuary policy on social media verges on the hysterical.
Opportunistic
By failing to explain how the money has been spent, the scheme’s opportunistic opponents are seeking to give the impression that it’s been handed over to small boat arrivals.
In fact, as a Welsh Government FoI disclosure made clear in March 2025, the bulk of the money has been spent on resettling refugees fleeing Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. It stated: “The total net spend (expenditure minus income from external sources) since 2019-20 on the Nation of Sanctuary plan is approximately £54,879,744.15. At least £45,474,618.73 of this net spend was related to supporting Ukrainian arrivals to Wales.”
This has been pointed out to Reform, Mr Davies and their social media outriders, but they have failed to moderate or cease promoting their misleading message – obviously because Ukrainian refugees are perceived as more worthy than those with darker skin.
Putin apologist
As the Nazi propaganda guru Joseph Goebbels is reputed to have said: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. Another point, of course, is that Nigel Farage, the walking personality cult who leads (and owns) Reform UK Ltd, is a shameless apologist for Putin who has blamed the West for “provoking” Russia by expanding the EU and the Nato military alliance eastwards.
There’s no doubt that Reform’s Senedd election campaign will major on issues like the Nation of Sanctuary. One of the channels being used to spread such distorted messaging is an X account called Doge Wales, named in homage to Elon Musk and the semi-official Doge (Department of Government Efficiency) organisation he led on a rampage through the US federal government for several months earlier this year before he fell out with Trump.
A Guardian article published in May 2025 stated: “Doge’s cuts have targeted a swath of agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which handles weather and natural disaster forecasting, and plunged others such as the Department of Veterans’ Affairs into crises. Numerous smaller agencies, such as one that coordinates policy on homelessness, have been in effect shut down. Doge has brought several bureaus to their knees.”
Inspiration
Yet Reform and Andrew RT Davies obviously see the American Doge as an inspiration, and we can be reasonably sure they would seek to emulate such chaos should they win control of the Welsh Government next May.
Doge Wales has recently launched a YouTube channel, on which are posted TV and social media clips that are in tune with the X account’s right wing ideology. The latest such video has an Andrew RT Davies lookalike ranting about the Nation of Sanctuary.
Because our laws relating to the funding of election campaigns are antiquated, Doge Wales is able to push propaganda aimed at getting votes for Reform without regard to any kind of regulatory oversight or monetary restriction. We should, at the very least, know who is behind the X account and the YouTube channel.
The account itself has been challenged to say who runs it, but won’t respond. Multiple sources have told Nation.Cymru that the man behind it is Ross England, who gained notoriety after he was accused by a judge of deliberately sabotaging a rape trial in 2018 by making inappropriate comments in front of the jury, causing it to collapse. At a retrial the defendant, a friend of England’s called James Hackett, was convicted and jailed for five years.
The matter had serious political repercussions too. England had been selected to stand as the Conservative candidate in the Vale of Glamorgan at the 2021 Senedd election, but was sacked. More significantly, Alun Cairns, for whom England worked as an adviser, had to resign as Secretary of State for Wales when evidence emerged that he was aware that England had collapsed the trial.
Andrew RT Davies and Doge Wales frequently interact with each other on X, so on Friday September 19 I emailed him to find out what he knew about the account. I wrote:
“Dear Andrew, I hope you are well.
“Multiple sources have told us that the Doge Wales X account is managed by Ross England, who as you know collapsed a rape trial. As someone who regularly interacts with Doge Wales, do you know if that is the case?
“If it isn’t the case, do you know who runs the account?
“Clearly you share similar and sometimes identical views with Doge Wales on your pet subjects such as Senedd expansion and the Nation of Sanctuary. You and the account repost each other’s posts.
“Clearly, also, a significant amount of money goes into supporting Doge Wales, which now has its own YouTube channel. Do you know its source of funds?
“If the person behind Doge Wales is Mr England, do you think it is appropriate for you to interact with the account, given his history.
“If you don’t know the identity of the person running Doge Wales, don’t you think you should make it your business to find out, as an inappropriate association could be reputationally damaging for you.
“I am writing an article about this matter and would be grateful for a response today.”
Mr Davies did not respond.
More than any election held in Wales before, the outcome of next May’s battle to see who will run the Welsh Government until 2030 will be determined by whether people cast their votes to participate in a culture war or on the basis of practical policies aimed at improving the nation’s prosperity and cultural richness. Let’s hope they make the right decision.
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Its already happened in Trowbridge and St Mellons. We are now a divided community and one half of those who voted insisted they are not racist but no asylum seekers should enter as we no longer a country for sanctuary. They are not racist but most if not all asylum seekers coming via the boats are people of colour. I have no idea how anyone can distinguish between an illegal immigrant and myself. We are entering troubling and most likely violent times.
There are no racists officially, just ‘concerned’ folk. Like the guy I mentioned from the whites only Rugby club in Southern Africa who told my son ‘we’re not racist, we just hate the blacks’. The evil-ution of the National Front narrative has been finely honed to this but they will never get it past me.
Very well said and true.
“The (Reform) party’s new chair Zia Yusuf did not stand as a candidate but donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party and appeared at campaign events. Mr Yusuf made an estimated £31m last year after selling his luxury concierge app Velocity Black” Wiki This guy, or those in his name, pumps out a constant steam of bile and weaponised malice on Twitter. It’s incessant, non stop, every issue twisted to inflame, to further instill a futher victim mentality amongst the “true Brits”. Der Stûrmer born again, alive and sick. I was politically “educated” very long ago to never… Read more »
If its relentlessly spewing out lies and smears ahead of the Senedd election than what’s become known as a ‘Norwich pharmaceutical’ definitely seems to be in order to unmask whoever is behind that Doge Wales account.
American DOGE is an operation to entirely remove money from the people and funnel it into a few select private accounts. Theft. Tories have been doing it forever and Deform UK plan to hyperspeed it so when you all see the box on your ballot paper next to these two fraudster organisations, do not put an ‘X’ in it. It amounts to signing your own suicide note.
Far more than money, they have accomplished a massive data grab. They know who has been naughty, who has been nice who is white and who is not white…….
I would not be at all surprised.
Reform UK have no positive polices for Wales. They are void of ideas. A populist wrecking ball. But I do look forward to the Senedd Cymru election debates when the soft underbelly of Reform will be exposed for all to see. And I want Plaid Cymru to bare its teeth and to rip their guts out. See, they can’t demonise the EU as done with Brexit anymore or continue to attack asylum seekers when Nigel Farage himself said last last June 2024 that, and I quote: “Immigration is not a big issue in Wales”. Also. How is Reform going to… Read more »
Doge or Deryn, these people should not be given access to our data at national or council level without knowing exactly who they are and passing an enhanced DBS check.
Thank you Martin for your determination in pursuing the selectively silent perennially unaccountable. This death cult is here to strangle Cymru and as The Stranglers said in 1977, ‘Something better change’.
Anyone prepared to subject Reform UK and its agenda to any serious scrutiny will be fairly easily able to see what manner of people are leading it and shilling for it. But my impression is that quite a lot of voters don’t do scrutiny of that sort, and that right now what is driving many of them is the feeling that since the governments which we’ve had over the last couple of decades have presided over what they perceive as a general diminution of their quality of life, the time has now come to ‘give someone else a chance’. And,… Read more »
I think we should be seriously worried about what is going on. There were at least 400 people marching in Newtown last weekend complete with Welsh flags and Yma o hyd playing these organisers are trying to appropriate Welsh symbols. There small but very worried ethnic minority groups in this rural area. Great to see Plaid Cymru + Labour MP there to oppose them. Some dangerous forces have been unleased I know some of them and their hatred is visceral. We need to step away from nativism as they have in Scotland and support anyone who lives here wholeheartedly. And… Read more »
They laundered the truth in offshore verse,
> Spoke slogans while sipping from dynastic purse.
> Conviction? A badge. Transparency? A curse.
> And still they call it Reform.
It’s easy to heckle from the terraces. Harder to lace up your boots when the nation calls — especially when the pitch is rigged and the referee’s on a retainer.
farage now after settled migrants. People here legally, settled in the UK. People paying into the economy. Your French husband, your German wife.
Anyone in the reform party, looks like you are the ones to break up families, take mothers from children and destroy the economy.
How many generations will farage accept. How long before the boots put in the door of your aunt to put her on a plane out the UK but she has lived and contributed to the UK most of her life and has a close family.