Nigel Farage ‘not interested in Wales', Starmer claims

Powys County Times

5 hours ago

Sir Keir Starmer has said Reform leader Nigel Farage 'isn't interested in Wales' and has no viable plan for Port Talbot's blast furnaces.
Speaking at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, the Prime Minister described the Reform UK leader as a 'wolf in Wall Street clothing'.
'When you ask him about Clacton, he thinks he's running in the 2.10 at Ascot,' Sir Keir joked.
Mr Farage has said his party wants to restart Port Talbot's blast furnaces but Sir Keir said the Reform leader has 'no idea what he's talking about', when it comes to the furnaces, and has 'no plan at all'.
Port Talbot's remaining blast furnaces were shut down in September, with a new electric arc furnace being built in their place.
Reform is looking to end Labour's 26 years of domination at the Senedd elections in May next year.
Labour performed poorly in this year's local elections in England, which saw Mr Farage's party win a swathe of council seats.
Taking aim at Mr Farage, Sir Keir said the Clacton MP is 'a wolf in Wall Street clothing'.
'Reform claimed to be the party of patriotism while sucking up to Putin and abusing our armed forces online.
'They say they're the party of workers while they vote against workers' rights, intending to charge people to use the NHS and plan unfunded tax cuts for billionaires.'
Sir Keir also said any deal between the Tories, Reform UK and Plaid Cymru at next year's key elections in Wales would amount to a 'backroom stitch-up'.
The elections to the Senedd will use a proportional system for the first time, meaning coalitions are likely.
The Prime Minister said it would risk a 'return to the chaos and division of the last decade' and risk rolling back the progress his party is starting to make.
It would be 'working families left to pick up the bill', he added.
'Whether that's with Reform or with Plaid's determination to cut Wales off from the rest of the country, with no plan to put Wales back together,' he said.
'I know that these are the parties that talk a big game, but who is actually delivering?'
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has not ruled out making deals with Plaid Cymru or Reform at the next Senedd election.
Farmers gathered outside the conference to protest ahead of Sir Keir's speech, with about 20 tractors parked on the promenade in the north Wales resort town by late morning.
First Minister Eluned Morgan accused Nigel Farage of 'peddling fantasies' about the future of Wales.
Next year's key elections in Wales will be a 'moment of reckoning', she said.
'Reform are rising and across the country, people are asking big, serious questions about what kind of future they want for Wales,' Baroness Morgan told the conference.
'It's time to stand up,' she added.
'While Nigel Farage is in Port Talbot peddling fantasies about sending people's grandchildren down coal mines and reopening blast furnaces, we're dealing with the reality that they left behind, the scars of decades of Tory neglect, the cost of industrial decline,' she said.
'We're not romanticising the past. We're cleaning it up.'