Ex-Tory councillor unveiled by Nigel Farage as Reform's Welsh leader

Nigel Farage has named former Tory councillor Dan Thomas as Reform UK's Welsh leader.

At a rally in Newport on Thursday, Thomas told Reform supporters: "With you, the people's army, Reform will be the change that Wales desperately needs."

The ex-leader of Barnet council, who is originally from Blackwood, Caerphilly county, said he was now "back home, raising my two boys in the south Wales valleys - I've come back to where I belong".

The Conservatives said he appeared to have been "parachuted back to Wales" to take advantage of Senedd electoral changes, Labour dismissed Thomas as "another former Tory" leading Reform in Wales, while Plaid Cymru said Reform was "recycled, washed-out Tories".

Farage also confirmed on stage that former Conservative Senedd member James Evans had joined Reform.

Evans was expelled from the Tories last month after telling senior figures in the party he was talking to Reform about defecting.

Farage said he had chosen Thomas because he was "battle hardened".

"I think we deserve Reform UK, here in Wales, to be led by somebody who's been battle hardened, who's been there before," he said.

Farage said Thomas would "keep a calm head through the good and bad, because you're always going to get both in a campaign".

Thomas told Reform activists at the rally that the Senedd election on 7 May was Wales's "last chance".

"We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to smash Labour's failing grip in Wales and, as your new leader in Wales, I will pour my heart and soul into fighting for every vote," he said.

"We will have a positive, ambitious manifesto, we will have a team of talented, passionate candidates who know their communities and will be taking our message of change to the streets.

"We're fighting to win, fighting for every vote, because this is the last chance for Wales."

Thomas led Barnet council in north London from 2019 to 2022, when Labour won the local election, before becoming opposition leader from 2022 until May 2024.

He resigned at the end of last year after 19 years as a councillor.

Local media quoted him saying he moved away from Barnet in 2024 so that he and his wife could raise their young sons in the countryside and live closer to their families in south Wales.

Thomas said at a press conference after his unveiling that he had "kept abreast of Welsh politics" and was "very informed" about the country's political scene.

There were, he said, "very many overlaps" between England and Wales on policy.

Farage stressed Thomas and his party colleagues in Wales would set Welsh policy, saying he was "not a hard line dictator".

The Reform UK leader described Thomas as a "man who was born in the valleys who like so many, sadly, young people from Wales headed off to London for a career in which he did well".

He added he was "somebody who knows what it is to run big budgets, somebody who knows how difficult it is to be in government".

Reform has not had an official leader representing the party in Wales since Nathan Gill, who led it into the 2021 Senedd election and left the party shortly after.

Gill was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison in November after admitting taking bribes for pro-Russia interviews and speeches.

Earlier, James Evans told the rally he had been removed from the Tories for saying Wales and Britain were "broken".

"What I was being asked to defend was a vision for the United Kingdom that was not a good one," he said, accusing his former colleagues of "wanting to be part of that cosy Cardiff Bay bubble."

Evans becomes the party's second MS, after Laura Anne Jones joined last summer.

Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch said Thomas' unveiling comes after the "the last one was sent to prison in November for taking bribes from Russia", referring to Nathan Gill.

"We all know a Reform government would be more of the same. More incompetence. More dodgy appointments. More drama," she said.

Rival political parties in Wales were also quick to attack Reform's announcement.

Welsh Conservatives' Senedd leader Darren Millar said Thomas "appears to have been parachuted back to Wales to take advantage of the Reform, Labour and Plaid-backed changes to the electoral system" which will see an expanded Welsh Parliament.

Welsh Labour said: "Nigel Farage says there are no Tories in Wales – that's because they've all jumped ship to Reform UK to save their own skins.

"And now we've got a man who was a London councillor until two months ago telling Wales what it needs."

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth called Thomas "Farage's Welsh deputy" and said there was "no doubt that Reform UK are simply recycled, washed-out Tories looking for a new political home now the Conservatives are dead in the water".

Welsh Liberal Democrats leader Jane Dodds pointed towards Thomas' past as a Tory, saying: "The same people who trashed our economy and hollowed out public services should not be trusted to reinvent themselves and lecture Wales about change."

Phillip Davies, the Green party's deputy Welsh leader, said that "Farage sees Wales as merely a cash cow, just like all the Tories who've jumped ship to try to continue to line their own pockets".

By Gareth Lewis, BBC Wales political editor

"Please welcome the leader of Reform Wales, please welcome Dan Thomas".

With that introduction Nigel Farage ended weeks of speculation. Two out of three boxes are now ticked – Reform has a Welsh leader. Candidates and policies are to come.

Dan Thomas was not a name that had been on anyone else's lips, and the applause was more muted than the rapturous ovation for Farage himself and Reform's latest recruit, former Conservative MS James Evans.

Was the party faithful, hundreds strong at this event, also 'googling' his name along with most of the media?

Thomas does not have much time to establish himself, and also needs to strike a balance - as for so many Reform voters Nigel Farage is Reform.

Is there room for someone else in their affections and will Thomas be given the autonomy on Welsh issues that Nigel Farage has promised? Do potential Reform voters want him to have that?

Dan Thomas made a big play about his upbringing and his pride in coming back, but he is wide open to opposition attacks, claiming he's a Farage puppet and that despite where he was born, he is a political product of London