'Everything they touch tends to turn to dust'
The latest Tory to defect to Reform, Welsh Senedd member James Evans, called the party “not a serious party” only a few months ago.
In a recent TV debate, Evans slammed Reform for making “unfunded, unrealistic promises” to voters.
He said: “Unfortunately what we see from Reform UK is unfunded, unrealistic promises to the electorate.”
Evans added that Nigel Farage’s party had had to roll back on all their economic policies and tax cuts because they’re unfunded.
He also said that Reform did not have policies on education or the NHS.
“They are not a serious party,” he said, before claiming “they’re a socialist party in all but name, they’re not a party on the right.”
Evans also said: “The problem we see with Reform is that every policy they announce, after a couple of days when it goes through the litmus test and the public don’t like it, they water it down and it disappears.”
The Senedd member for Brecon and Radnorshire said this had happened over Reform’s policy to reopen the blast furnaces in Port Talbot.
In reality, Farage never outlined how he would do this and admitted it would be difficult.
The Senedd member also criticised Reform for wanting to privatise the NHS.
Last July, he wrote on X: “They’d have everyone paying insurance before you know it, leaving people who can’t afford it, especially older and sicker people, to suffer in pain or die without care.”
Evans’ position appears to have shifted dramatically in recent months. Last month, he was sacked by the Tories over suspicions that he was planning to defect, and now he has joined Reform.
At today’s Reform press conference in Wales, Farage announced that former Conservative council leader Dan Thomas as Reform UK’s leader in Wales ahead of the May Senedd elections.
Thomas will become the party’s first leader in Wales since Nathan Gill, who was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison last November for accepting bribes to make pro-Russia statements in the European Parliament and media interviews.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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