Reform UK's Welsh leader says property location being 'weaponised'

Reform UK's Welsh leader has said he had moved back to Wales from London to raise his children and reports that he did not live here were "smear attempts".

The party's leader Nigel Farage confirmed Dan Thomas, from Blackwood, in Caerphilly county, as his party's Welsh leader at a rally in Newport on Thursday

Nation Cymru reported on Friday that Thomas, a former Conservative leader of Barnet council in north London, had bought a house near Bath.

But he told Sunday's BBC Politics Wales that although he had "a property portfolio", he said: "I am living and have been living in Wales."

"It's quite telling that the smear attempts have already started from the Welsh establishment and their supporters."

In order to stand in May's Senedd elections, it is a legal requirement that candidates live in Wales.

Thomas said he was "not going to talk about locations of properties [in his portfolio] and all that kind of thing but that is being weaponised against me to try and make out that I'm not living in Wales."

BBC Wales understands one of his properties is in Bath.

Thomas also said that he hoped to stand in the Casnewydd Islwyn seat at the Senedd elections, but said that the final list of Reform's candidates had yet to be finalised.

Thomas, who defected to Reform in the summer of 2025, said he moved to Wales in 2024 and continued to be a councillor in London for over a year.

He said: "So when I left London, I talked to my colleagues at the time, and they asked me not to stand down as a councillor. It would be quite disruptive having a by-election. It [would have] cost the taxpayer about £30,000.

"So I continued to attend meetings, and help residents with casework and that kind of thing. So, I was still a councillor up there, but I resigned my seat late last year because I just wanted a fresh start for 2026."

The Welsh Conservatives, in a post on X, said: "Reform's Welsh Leader has admitted he spent a year as a councillor in London while living in Wales! Do his priorities lie in London or Wales?"

While leader of Barnet council, he said he helped to outsource "back office functions" into the private sector, saving the authority £16m a year which made it "more efficient".

While the move was criticised by some at the time, Thomas said he would "do it all over again" and added "reorganising the back office allows you to focus money and retain frontline services such as bin collections".

He said the savings allowed him to cut council tax in 2014 and freeze it for a number of years.

Asked if this philosophy would be his approach to Welsh government budgets if successful in the elections, he said he "wouldn't be looking to make major cuts to local government settlements".

"But we would be looking for local government to be more efficient."

He acknowledged that while Welsh government could not force councils to make cuts, it "can encourage it".

Thomas also said he would be open to taking schools out of local authority control to create academies as in England, but was not prepared to announce "any manifesto commitments now".

"With education and with the NHS - the theme here is doing things differently - because both the NHS and the education system are failing our residents and the patients," he said.

Asked about his attitude to devolution and whether he would ask the UK government for more money, Thomas said he would not.

"We need to get the Senedd getting the basics right first before we ask for more money or powers or anything like that.

"Reform will take ownership of the Senedd and say, 'look, this is what we've got - let's do it'.

"Of course we will stand up for Wales but we will take ownership.

"What we don't do is blame any failures on the government, and what's what Labour and Plaid do."

Welsh Labour said: "Both Reform UK and Plaid Cymru say they have a plan for Wales but can't give any detail.

"Reform UK's new Welsh leader is just another Tory defectee trying to get Farage into No10.

"It's the same old slogans and simple solutions without substance.

"They say they'll make efficiencies but what they mean are cuts and can't say where the axe will fall."