Calum Davies: What do Reform UK stand for, in Wales?

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and a candidate for the Senedd in May.

A great deal has been written about Reform UK’s potential electoral performance in May’s devolved elections, but what do they actually stand for? There is much cause for concern.

Reform’s rise has come too quickly for its own good.

Polling suggests it will be the second largest party in both the Welsh and Scottish parliaments in two months’ time, and the most popular (and unpopular) party in the wider country. This has required a rapid and large scale-up not just in terms of its operations, but its philosophy. With so many new people and a general anti-establishment message, the party is courting a range of views from a variety of political hinterlands. This leads to intellectual inconsistency and a vibes-over-policy mindset.

This is quite handy for campaigning, being all things to all people, but it sows the seeds for an early demise as voters are led to believe they are for one thing when they are not. Once unravelled, it would be a particularly devastating charge for Reform who explicitly position themselves as more trustworthy than the traditional parties who they (not unfairly) claim have a poor record of keeping promises and delivering results.

The tightrope has been walked over the last two years as its more libertarian, tax-cutting desires clash with its more interventionist, statist approach. Only one can win and voters deserve to know which. Such an obvious misstep was its fluid position on the two-child benefit cap which, at the last vote, led to its MPs voting in different directions. A party confident in its guiding values would not have made a mistake like this.

Indeed, what does it tell us about their values? It has been suggested to me more than once that I defect to Reform – but what would I be joining? I know both the triumphs and shortcomings of the Conservative Party. It is imperfect, but I know where I stand. Can the Reform member say the same without reverting to the general lines of the anti-establishment protest voter?

What concerns me, in particular in these elections, is how Reform’s self-defining image as a party that is against so much and for so little will impact on the most important faultline of all.

In January, a piece in The Times highlighted Reform’s ambivalence towards the Union under its new Scottish leader, Lord Offord. One might think a party often caricatured as an English nationalist one and led by an ex-Tory would not be flirting with Scottish independence. Yet, Offord claimed, “rational nationalists” could find common ground with “moderate unionists,” and they could “deal with the constitution later”. He was not “ruling [a referendum] out in the future” when a decision on independence could be based on “strength, not just emotion”.

Those of us who place the preservation of the United Kingdom and recognise the dangers of enabling separatist rhetoric know that there is no such thing as a “rational nationalist” and understand that all their actions are designed to lead to an end goal. Reform may want to win pro-independence voters, but it should be through persuasion of the merits of their agenda (for what it is), not by humouring that of the separatist. It should oppose another referendum.

Something similar is happening in Wales too. The Welsh Conservatives produced a great montage of Reform figures, including Nigel Farage and his new Welsh frontman, saying they want more devolution and more powers in Cardiff Bay. Have they not learnt the lesson of the British Conservative Government who did that and the Welsh Labour Government who abused those powers, all in turn servicing Plaid Cymru’s nationalist agenda time and time again? They claim to hate the world Blair made, yet here they are building on his legacy, not demolishing it.

Reform supports the expansion of the Senedd from 60 to 96 members at a cost of £120m. On both enlarging and empowering the Senedd, Reform is on the same page as Labour, Plaid, the Lib Dems, and the Greens. Only the Welsh Conservatives have opposed this expansion from the start and want to reverse it. As a candidate, I have spoken with many people who are considering Reform believing they are anti-establishment. Once they are made aware of this enabling agenda, they reconsider and will look at the Conservatives again.

Reform councillors are not even living up to some of the party’s supposedly reliable positions, with their sole Cardiff councillor failing to back my motion to close the illegal migrant hotel in the city. If Reform councillors cannot back even this, then what can we expect of them?

It is this ongoing inability to pick a lane – as well as the feuds with Farage – that inspired the founding of Advance UK and Restore. It is noticeable that the Lowe outfit is established on the basis that Reform is too mainstream. Whilst this has mainly centred on immigration, given its closeness to establishment policy in Wales and Scotland, it does give credence to an emerging pattern – that Reform is not a radical break from the norm. It is just another flawed political party destined to repeat the mistakes all others make. Its new branding, but politics as usual.

However, Reform’s youth coupled with its sudden popularity is a recipe for these mistakes to become catastrophes. With less than two months until the Senedd election, Reform has announced no candidates. It is not just to avoid scrutiny – it has a serious problem in finding quality people to stand. My fear is a large group of Reform MSs will be elected but will fall under the spell of the devocratic establishment and go native, which correlates with its devocratic calls for more powers and politicians in Cardiff Bay. We need serious anti-establishment politicians to challenge the devolved system of government that has failed Wales for three decades, not easily bored rabble-rousers who don’t recognise the dangerous of separatism.

I assert that Reform is actually to the political left of the Conservatives. Faragists may talk in more forceful terms, but Kemi Badenoch’s policy programme does outflank Farage from the right. The Conservatives are notching up a lot of wins and doing much of the legwork of the Opposition but, frustratingly, the scars of government run deep, and other are the beneficiaries.

Convincing evidence of this is the volume of Conservative defectors, another source of anger for those who choose Restore but also those within Reform. Its Scottish and Welsh leader as well as all its MSPs and MSs are ex-Tories. Most Reform MPs used to be Conservative MPs. Whilst I consider Robert Jenrick and Danny Kruger to be losses to our party (in terms of their ability, not loyalty), Reform have also done us a favour in taking off our hands the mediocre and the mad.

Reform just being an outfit for the dregs of the Conservatives was further compounded at the launch of its Welsh manifesto earlier this month – a blatant rip-off of the Welsh Conservative programme of the last decade. Seriously, there was little difference in its contents – other than Reform’s suggestion to put tolls on the M4 relief road. Not sure how much traffic that will relieve.

With less than seven weeks to go until polling day, much remains uncertain. What we do need to know is for what does Reform actually stand and can it be trusted to protect the Union?