Reform UK takes seat in second Welsh council following by-election

No surprise that Owain Clatworthy is a recent member of the Conservative Party. I bet he didn't raise that much when campaigning in Cefn Cribwr. I say this with the no happiness but another awful result for Plaid in a working class south Wales ward. I really hope they are doing some soul searching.

Oh whoopee doo. One seat. Who's waiting for the flypast by Nigel Farage with a banner proposing a new Bank Holiday celebrating himself. All I see in this lineup are those who would sell Wales down the river to please their cult leader Nigel Farage. They are merely sheeple led by their noses. Conservatives collaborators. The very same mindset opposed devolution in 1979. Again in 1997. They also hostile towards and likely voted against Wales having a legislative powers in 2012. They opposed the increase in Senedd members from 60 to 96 , ironically a change that increased their chance to winning seats in next year's Senedd election. I can forsee the same outcome for Reform as Ukip and Brexit Party. Total chaos. Their vetting process is nonexistent. Even before they've started candidates running for English council and mayoral elections have been outed as racists ,and in some cases, even sex offenders. To me Reform UK are the equivalent of a box of cheap fireworks with Made in England stamped on the rear. The graphics & instructions offer an explosion of colour, red white & blue, but the reality is the public will get one wonky sparkler that lasts one second before fizzling out and BritNat banger that will likely explode in your face.

When Mike Kearn won the seat for Labour (5 May 2022), he did so with 1,308 votes. There was no Reform candidate then. Now the Labour candidate gets 667 votes and Reform gets elected with 697. Btw, the best placed Tory candidate last time got 367 and this time? 55. And neither Plaid nor the Greens stood here last time. https://www.bridgend.gov.uk/media/3vxfvkav/pyle-kenfig-hill-and-cefn-cribwr-declaration-of-result-of-poll.pdf

Another successful Plaid election

You really think they'll get a majority under the new system? Just getting the most votes isn't enough as they'll extinguish their only possible coalition partner.

As a welsh socialist it grieves me that a party that wants to privatise our public services, that's led by privately educated millionaires and that was born out of the most fanatical union jack waving elements of the tory party is probably set to be the biggest party in Wales' parliament next year. And everyone that believes in a just and compassionate Wales needs to ask ourselves how such a terrible prospect as Reform possibly forming a welsh govt has come to pass? Certainly its a shocking indictment of Wales governing class for the last 25 years. A governing class thats presided over a wales where it can be near impossible to get a doctors appointment in under a week, where having a nhs dentist or a functioning local bus service is almost a luxury, where we've got record numbers on social housing waiting lists and where educational standards are the worst in the british isles by some margin. And this is on us in Wales - we cant blame the westminster bogeyman for this sorry state of affairs. And while most of the responsibility for this rightly lays at the door of labour's branch office in Wales im afraid Plaid arent entirely blameless either. We just have to hope that the habit of farage led parties to implode or its lunatuc fringe coming out of hiding - repelling voters in the process - or a beaming Farage will be all over welsh tv screens this time next year celebrating his party's success in the Senedd elections.

Presumably Reform don't have a leader in Wales because they don't need one just for a county of England. The Cons are the same, they only have a group leader in the Senedd rather than a party leader in Wales: https://nation.cymru/news/andrew-rt-davies-criticised-for-falsely-claiming-hes-leader-of-the-welsh-conservatives/

'The vacant seat was won by newly elected Reform councillor, Owain Clatworthy, 20, who clinched it with a narrow margin of only 30 votes.' Sign of the times, it appears - sadly. This phenomenon might turn out to have run its course before the next Westminster election, probably more than four years away, but I don't think there's any chance of it doing so before our next Senedd election only a year away. I think we may yet have to face our own 'Trump experience' here in Wales, though fortunately there's a pretty good chance that we won't get anything as venally crazy as the mayhem currently being wrought 'across the pond'.

We can only put this down to a lack of confidence within our own people in Wales. The perception of there being a ceiling to our ambitions. That we should always accept our fate as second class citizens in our own country of Wales and therefore always accept what the UK English/British state (ie. English government) hands down and dictates to us and even with their own political parties and society. Well, that should not be the case and should never have ever been accepted. Only our people: you and me, can change things, not the English/British state and not anybody else. Every nation has their own interests at heart; There may be common interests between nations but they need to be found with for our own interests at heart. The UK English/British state certainly does this for themselves, but it is no always in our own interests as Welsh citizens. Already, the UK state has lost us our steel industry can we trust them ? reformUK is an English based political party, it came from England and its Tories, it represents England and nobody else. Scotland and Ireland are seeing through reform as yet another unionist scam. The reform base in London is comparable to AfD, they are centralists and power is will be held centrally in London by its leader Farage: a man that goes begging for funds from Trump, and Elon Musk (a neo-Nazi). That's his political home: fascism. They are imperialists, they want to control the world's economy and people for their own benefit. You have been warned. Voting reformUK may be the greatest mistake only comparable to the one the Germans made in 1933. There is no USA nor USSR to save us, the USA and Russia have both fascist regimes. We have to liberate ourselves. Yes Cymru is the campaign for an independent Wales. Plaid Cymru is our political representatives at the Senedd. We need our own Economy: Our own Industries and Banking system including a national bank and currency, Our own wealth producing industries bringing jobs and wealth to our economy, our own law, justice system, Our own Government, political constitution, political parties, politics and culture; Our own trading treaties including membership of EFTA, EEA and EU. All of which Farage and his UK would deny us of having in Wales if we as a nation would lose if we surrender power to them. Only we the people can change our lives for our own interest.

If Reform UK continue the success, they have had in the English local elections, at next years Senedd elections, it will confirm, Wales, politically, is nothing but a West English county. That's what you get from useless, Welsh Labour governments, and a party/parties, that put their political careers, before our nation. I despair, where our nation of Wales, is heading.

It's only one seat, but one seat too many. It's appalling that there's enough people with such disdain for Wales to elect such a candidate.

He is going to teach the voters a lesson. Far too young and immature. I don't think reform expected that win. He has no policy no experience. A wasted vote other than to teach the current body a lesson.