Online interactions with Nathan Gill deleted from Reform Caerphilly by-election candidate's social media

Emily Price 

Reform UK's Caerphilly by-election candidate Llŷr Powell has removed thousands of his social media posts including online interactions with his former boss Nathan Gill.

Wayback Machine - a digital archive of the web that allows users to view past versions of websites - shows that 3207 posts published by Powell have been removed.

We scrolled back on the Senedd hopeful's X account and found that posts published prior to August 8th 2023 can no longer be viewed.

This includes interactions between Powell and his former employer - the disgraced ex-Reform leader in Wales, Nathan Gill.

It is unclear when the posts were deleted.

Gill was elected as a UKIP member of the European Parliament in 2014 and held the role until the UK left the EU in 2020. He then led Reform UK’s 2021 Senedd election campaign.

He recently pled guilty to eight counts of taking bribes in exchange for making pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament on dates between December 6 2018 and July 18 2019.

Powell was employed by Gill as a constituency caseworker while he was an MEP.

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'Abhorrent'

Questions have been raised by Powell's political opponents - including Wales' First Minister Eluned Morgan - about whether he knew about the offences at the time.

He has strongly denied knowledge of his former boss' Russian bribes and has described Gill's behaviour as "abhorrent" and "a betrayal."

X posts published by Gill in 2016 praising Powell as an "excellent spokesman" who gives "first class interviews" are still available to view online.

But comments published by Gill on X responding to posts by Powell now show an error message which states: "Nothing to see here - yet."

Other X posts in which Powell has interacted with Gill online now show the error message: "This post was deleted by the post author."

Posts in which Gill has attempted to share links from Powell's account show the error message, "This post is unavailable".

The Reform by-election candidate has been campaigning hard in recent weeks to win the Senedd's Caerphilly seat from Labour following the sudden death of Hefin David.

A recent voting intention poll shows a close contest between Reform (42%) and Plaid (38%) ahead of the October 23 vote.

Nation.Cymru asked Llŷr Powell why thousands of his X posts had been removed from the web. We did not receive a response.

A Welsh Labour source said: "We've said throughout this campaign that Reform UK has serious questions to answer about Nathan Gill, what they knew and his influence on the party in Wales.

"Nigel Farage continuely pretends he barely knew him. The people of Caerphilly deserve to know what they are voting for."

'Serious concerns'

Labour Senedd Member Mick Antoniw said the deletion of online interactions with Gill "raises serious concerns".

He said: "The issue is not necessarily the deletion of general social media postings: that is quite common.

"However, the deletion of his engagement with Nathan Gill raises serious concerns.

"The former Reform leader in Wales is due to be sentenced for receiving Russian bribes.

"There are many concerns being raised about Reform links with Russia and there are clearly issues of national security that could be at stake.

"It is important that people know what his engagement was with Nathan Gill at the relevant time, before and after and whether these relate to the Russia connection.

"It also begs the question as to why he would want to delete this engagement.

"It may be the case that the security services already have this information in which case there may well be further questions raised in Westminster.

"If such information is available it would be appropriate for him to authorise their public disclosure.

"This is clearly a matter of valid and genuine public interest."

'Transparency'

Plaid Cymru criticised Powell for failing to answer Nation.Cymru's questions on why he deleted so many posts.

A spokesperson said: "There's a clear pattern here in Reform refusing to answer perfectly legitimate questions - not just about the deletion of thousands of tweets, but also regarding his disgraced former employer, the former leader of Reform in Wales, Nathan Gill, who was found guilty of taking bribes from a foreign state currently invading Ukraine.

"They claim to ‘tell it straight’ but cannot even answer questions. The people of Caerphilly deserve a representative who offers transparency, accountability, and leaders they can trust.

"Plaid Cymru is standing up for Caerphilly. With Labour in freefall in third place, this is a clear two-horse race and every vote for Plaid Cymru is a vote to ensure Caerphilly is represented by someone who will fight for the community and keep Reform out."