Reform using 'brutal and intrusive' vetting to pick candidates

Reform UK has "turned down genuinely good people" because of social media posts they made in the past, according to one of its councillors.

The party has been vetting candidates ahead of the Welsh Senedd election in May but has yet to announce who will be standing, its policies or its Welsh leader.

In January, UK leader Nigel Farage told a press conference the party's vetting in the past had been "poor, but it won't be in future".

Reform councillor Jason O'Connell, who represents the party on Torfaen council, said the vetting process has been "corrected" and was "brutal, it's intrusive".

O'Connell said the party has done "everything they can" by "going through social media accounts and background checks".

"I've gone through the process and it is brutal, it's intrusive," he told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.

"Social media now has been around for 20-plus years, there's a lot of history there.

"We've turned down some genuinely good people just on the off chance that they might have said something slightly off the wall 10, 20 years ago.

"We've lost that ability to bring them in because as, I said, digital is forever."

In 2024, 12 of the party's candidates for the UK general election were dropped after comments they made in the past came to light.

O'Connell has not been officially confirmed as a candidate for the party but, having fronted their party political broadcast this week, he is widely tipped to be their Welsh leader.

Addressing those rumours on Sunday's BBC Politics Wales, he said he was "flattered" but had not had any discussions about it with anyone in the party.

Asked if he was up to the task, he said: "I think so, but I haven't had a call, I haven't spoken to anybody at the party so we'll have to wait and see."

He also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier this week that the party would announce a new leader in Wales "very shortly indeed".