Nigel Farage to mine south Wales for votes

Times

a day ago

Nigel Farage will promise to resume coal mining in south Wales as he seeks to leave behind a week of turbulence for his party and outflank Labour in another traditional heartland.
After Zia Yusuf quit as Reform UK chairman only to return two days later, Farage is preparing to deploy him on a tour of the airwaves as a 'cabinet minister in waiting'. A more traditional party chairman who will rally a rapidly growing membership is expected to be appointed on Tuesday.
Reform UK won more than a quarter of the vote in the Scottish parliamentary by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse last week. Now Farage will seek to open a new front against Labour with a pledge to 're-industrialise Wales' and win over a working class base he will claim has been abandoned by Sir Keir Starmer.
He will try to harness a 'patriotic' vote as Reform attempts to take control of the Senedd from Labour in next year's elections.
In a speech on Monday, he will promise to reopen some of south Wales's coal mines to keep Port Talbot steelworks operational.
The pledge will stop short of a mass re-opening of pits, but Farage will argue that Port Talbot, which closed last year, will never successfully convert to electric arc furnaces and that firing it with locally-mined coal is the 'only option' if production is to remain in Wales.
He will promise to keep more 'factory floor' jobs in Wales by channelling subsidies to traditional industries that have declined over the past generation.
While Reform continues to top the polls Farage is likely to face questions about the party's readiness for power. Yusuf's abrupt resignation was a result of tensions between some staffers and a row about banning the burqa.
ISABEL INFANTES/REUTERS
Richard Tice, Farage's deputy, said Yusuf 'had a two-day holiday and he's back raring to go'. He said Yusuf had 'received horrendous online abuse, which was just appalling' and that the torrent of racism on social media 'does take its toll'.
Tice said the party was now 'splitting up a number of different activities', with a head of operations and a finance chief to help the treasurer. Nick Candy, the property magnate, will take over Yusuf's previous workload.
'Zia Yusuf has done a brilliant job in growing the party, creating huge infrastructure — over 400 branches — but it's a massive job and as we were growing incredibly fast, essentially that job was too much for one person, so we're reorganising,' Tice said.
As well as leading Reform's ' Doge department ' fighting government waste, Farage said Yusuf would 'assist the party with policy, fundraising and media appearances'.
It is understood that Farage wants to present Yusuf as a potential cabinet minister in a future Reform government as the party seeks to show it can offer a credible alternative. The party is seeking to recruit other outsiders to present to voters as potential future ministers.
Farage says that Reform is now a 'party of government' and is focusing on taking power in Cardiff next year and establishing a presence in Scotland. It will then aim to set out a plausible alternative government.
The party's policy platform has been criticised as wildly unrealistic. Tice dismissed that as 'absolute nonsense' and said Reform's promises of tax cuts and spending increases were affordable because 'there's so much waste' in government.
'We're the only people talking about how the Bank of the England should stop wasting tens of billions of pounds, we're the only people saying you should scrap net stupid zero, and that would save £20-30 billion a year, and we're the only people saying, actually, we should stop wasting taxpayers' cash,' he told the BBC.