Conservative Senedd member Laura Anne Jones has joined Reform UK.The announcement of the party’s first member of the Senedd was made at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells, Powys, on Tuesday.
The annual event is Europe’s largest agricultural show and attracts thousands of visitors every year.Laura Anne Jones was initially a member of the Senedd for the South Wales East region between 2003 and 2007, before returning in 2020.She is the second high-profile defection from the Conservative Party in recent weeks, after former cabinet minister David Jones joined the party earlier this month.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the latest defection was a “big step forward for [the party] in Wales”.
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(L-R) Nigel Farage, David Jones and Laura Anne Jones at the news conference
Speaking at a news conference, Ms Jones said she had been a member of the Conservative Party for 31 years but it was now “unrecognisable to [her]”.She said it “wasn’t the party that [she] joined over three decades ago” and that she could “no longer justify” party policy on the doorstep.Ms Jones said Wales was “a complete mess” and that she now wanted to be “part of the solution, not the problem”.
Reform now inside the Welsh political tent – as Farage targets farming vote
The Royal Welsh Show attracts thousands of farmers each year.
For some, it’s their annual break from their physically demanding work.
Today, it was the backdrop for Nigel Farage’s break from Westminster politics for a significant announcement – his first recruitment to Reform’s ranks in the Senedd.
Mr Farage has positioned himself as a champion of the farming community, attending some of the recent protests in which hundreds of tractors have lined the streets.
Demonstrators have been calling on the UK government to reverse controversial changes to inheritance tax.
Today, Mr Farage went even further and said his party would work with farmers to form future farming policy in Wales.
If the opinion polls are to be believed, Reform UK could be the party with the most seats in the Senedd next year.
Mr Farage can’t help but be somewhat optimistic, as he proudly announced Laura Anne Jones’s defection.
She said farming was “the reason that [she] joined politics in the first place” and the party’s choice of venue shows it is clearly hoping to pick up votes in rural communities.
With Ms Jones’s defection, the party is now inside the Welsh political tent ahead of that crucial election, albeit currently without a leader in Wales.
Mr Farage said there will be one in due course – but also promised to be in Wales often ahead of the election.
While he’s already ruled out standing for the Senedd himself, Mr Farage will undoubtedly have a leading role to play as Reform hopes to take centre stage in Welsh politics.
Reform is still without a leader in Wales, but Ms Jones did not rule herself out of the running for that position.The defection comes with less than a year to go until the Senedd election, when voters in Wales will elect 96 members to the Welsh parliament for the first time – an increase of more than 50%.Recent opinion polls have shown Reform UK and Plaid Cymru vying for pole position, with Labour in third and the Conservatives in fourth.’Very let down’Ms Jones told reporters she had not notified the Conservative Party of her defection before the announcement.The party’s Senedd leader Darren Millar said he was “disappointed” and Conservative members and voters would feel “very let down by her announcement”.A Labour spokesperson said the defection was “further proof that Reform are just Tories in teal ties” and that “neither party cares about the people of Wales”.Read more from Jattvibe:’Controlling’ husband who murdered wife jailedBus driver arrested after 20 people injured in crash
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said it was “yet another desperate Tory defection” and that “the writing is on the wall for their party’s prospects”.Welsh Lib Dem spokesperson David Chadwick said the Conservatives were “clearly dead as a political force in Wales” but that Reform had “no answers” for the country.
