Britain15 September, 20262 min read
Dan Thomas Resigns as Reform UK Wales Leader After Gwent Police Arrest
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Dan Thomas resigns as Reform UK Wales leader after arrest on suspicion of assault. Arrested Sunday, bailed pending further enquiries; later released without charge.
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Dan Thomas quits Reform Wales
Dan Thomas, the Reform UK leader in Wales and Leader of the Opposition in Cardiff Bay, resigned after Gwent Police confirmed he was arrested on Sunday 13 September on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour. In his resignation statement, Thomas said, “With deep regret, I am now standing down from this position due to personal reasons,” and he added that he was released without charge after being reported to the police over the weekend.
Gwent Police said, “On Sunday 13 September a 45-year-old man, from the Aberbargoed area, was arrested on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour,” and that he was bailed pending further enquiries. The resignation came as Thomas missed First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday, September 15, on the first day back of the Senedd term, with Helen Jenner standing in as his replacement against Plaid Cymru First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth.
Defection and party turmoil
Following Thomas’s resignation, Sarah Cooper-Lesadd, elected to represent Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg on May 7, defected to Plaid Cymru and accused Reform of not being “serious about governing Wales”.
Cooper-Lesadd said, “Reform has no interest in the work I came here to do. They are not serious about governing Wales,” framing her move as a rejection of what she described as division and headlines.
Welsh Labour leader Ken Skates told the Press Association that Thomas’s departure raised “many questions” and argued that “Dan Thomas was a personal pick by Nigel Farage”.
In parallel, the GB News report said Reform UK lost one of its members after the defection, and it cited a Survation opinion poll finding support for Reform UK now stands at 31 per cent in Wales.
What’s at stake next
With Thomas stepping down, Reform UK faced the immediate task of selecting its next Welsh leader in Cardiff Bay, after the party’s Senedd group had already been reshaped by the defection of Sarah Cooper-Lesadd to Plaid Cymru. The Guardian reported that Thomas’s resignation came as a major blow to Reform, noting that Thomas had led Reform to become the second-largest party in the Senedd at the election in May and that Reform had aimed to become Wales’s biggest party.
The Guardian also quoted Ken Skates saying, “Nigel Farage chose to make Nathan Gill his leader in Wales and he turned out to be a Russian asset,” and it tied that criticism to other allegations involving Reform figures. In the same Guardian report, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said on X that “people are innocent until proven guilty” while adding there was “a pattern” in terms of Conservatives who had defected to Nigel Farage’s party.