Wales Senedd elections are a ‘referendum’ on Starmer, claims Farage

Party leader and Welsh counterpart launch Reform UK manifesto in Newport

Nigel Farage has described May’s Senedd elections as a “referendum” on Keir Starmer, as Reform UK gears up to battle Plaid Cymru for the chance to end a century of Labour dominance in Wales.

Launching Reform’s election manifesto in Newport on Thursday alongside the party’s newly appointed Welsh leader, Dan Thomas, Farage said: “It’s a Welsh election, but I’m afraid, whether you like it or not, it doubles up as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s premiership. 7 May will end Labour dominance in Wales and in particular the valleys. And, if we get this right, we will get rid of the worst prime minister any of us have seen in our lifetimes.”

Support for Reform in Wales has surged as Welsh Labour struggles with a 26-year-long incumbency and an unpopular leader in Westminster, although Plaid Cymru are ahead of Reform in most polls.

Farage and Thomas spoke to an audience of approximately 2,000 people at the media conference-cum-rally, where manifestos were available in Welsh and English. About a dozen pro-refugee and pro-Palestine protesters had gathered outside, and shortly after Farage began speaking, security guards removed a heckler from the room.

Thomas listed several areas in which he said Wales was “going in the wrong direction”, including NHS waiting lists, falling education standards and the cost of living.

He said: “This is not inevitable, it is the result of political failure. For more than a century, Labour, propped up by Plaid Cymru in recent years, have dominated Welsh politics … All have failed to deliver what Wales needs.”

Reform is likely to benefit from Wales’s new proportional voting system, going from two MSs – both recent defections from the Tories – to potentially the biggest party in the Senedd. It is the first rightwing party with a chance of winning in Wales since the 1850s.

Core Reform plans for Wales include reducing income tax by 1p, prioritising people who have lived in the country for 10 years or longer for social housing, and improving the sustainable farming scheme, a flagship Welsh Labour support scheme launched this year.

The two leaders reiterated the party’s long-held pledge to abolish the Welsh government’s 20mph speed limit in urban areas. They also vowed to axe Wales’s nation of sanctuary policy, which mostly supports Ukrainian refugees, and scrap international aid.

Aid and immigration policy are both controlled by the UK government in Westminster, rather than Cardiff Bay, although £1m was earmarked for “international sustainable development” in the Welsh government’s 2026-27 budget.

A promise from Farage last summer to reopen Wales’s coalmines and restart the blast furnaces at Port Talbot’s steelworks was walked back, replaced by a pledge to “work with the Westminster government to protect strategic national industries such as steel”.

Many of the policies announced on Thursday were also announced by the Welsh Conservatives earlier this week. Farage said a published list of costings for the manifesto would be forthcoming.

Reform UK is yet to release candidate lists for the Senedd election. Thomas previously said that the party would field approximately 100 candidates across the 16 new constituencies created by the new voting system.