New Reform comms lead in hot water over Nation.Cymru investigation

Emily Price

An investigation by Nation.Cymru which revealed sickening messages in a Senedd Tory group chat has landed a former MS's advisor in hot water with his new employer, Reform UK.

Ed Sumner previously worked as a senior advisor to Welsh Conservative MS Laura Anne Jones but left her employment over the summer.

He now works as a press officer for Reform UK replacing the party's long standing head of communications, Gawain Towler.

A Reform source told PoliticsHome that Mr Sumner's appointment was a headache the "party could really do without" after a previous scandal originally broken by Nation.Cymru resurfaced in the press.

In June, we published a string of "sickening" messages sent by Mr Sumner to Tory colleagues in a group chat when he was working for Ms Jones.

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Offensive

Screen grabs showed that in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2024, Mr Sumner made offensive remarks about London's fireworks display saying it was too focused on "immigration, diversity and gays".

He also made disparaging comments about other Welsh Conservative MSs and cracked jokes about a Muslim MSs dead father.

On January 1, he wrote: "F*** me. This firework display. All about immigration, diversity and gays".

He later sent another message saying: "All about what we have in common, trying to force immigration and multiculturalism on us".

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Jokes

The former Tory staffer went on to make cruel comments about Shadow Transport Minister Natasha Asghar and her late father, the former Tory MS, Mohammad ‘Oscar’ Asghar.

Mr Asghar died unexpectedly in 2020 and his daughter vowed to continue his legacy after being elected to the Senedd for the same region her father served.

In the group chat, Mr Sumner joked about a fireworks display for the late MS that finishes "on a drone show of Mohammed looking down on us all. RIP DAD X."

Expenses

Mr Sumner's former employer is currently under investigation by South Wales Police and the Senedd’s Standards Commissioner for allegedly falsifying expenses claims.

Ms Jones told a staff member in a group chat: "When doing petrol thing - always make more than I did – add in stuff please ok."

Nation.Cymru can now reveal further messages which appear to show Mr Sumner encouraging the same member of staff to make expenses claims for journeys Ms Jones had not taken.

Mr Sumner has confirmed to us that the messages were sent by him.

During the WhatsApp exchange on October 5th 2023, Reform UK's new comms lead said: "Always make sure to maximise the miles as much as possible."

The staff member responded: "Have filled in any spare days with constituency office visits, and have chosen the longer route for all journeys. I think I've put on there the days that Laura was ill, can we still claim those?"

Mr Sumner then said: "Yeah we can. Perfect."

'Professionalise'

Mr Sumner left Ms Jones' employment this year shortly after she came under investigation by the police and Senedd Standards Commissioner.

His new appointment with Reform comes as new chairman Zia Yusuf sets out plans to "professionalise" the right-wing party after it won five seats at the General Election.

The decision to replace Reform's former comms lead with Mr Sumner has been heavily criticised by some elements of the party.

Reform's former deputy leader Ben Habib said "anyone familiar with the party and its history" knew sacking Towler was a "mistake".

Suzanne Evans, who served as the former deputy chair of UKIP, and worked with Towler, described the decision as "very unfair" adding that Reform UK had made a "big mistake".

We sent Reform UK the screen grabs revealing Mr Sumner had been dishonest in his previous office of work. Both Reform and Ed Sumner were invited to comment but did not respond.