𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Reform UK is a “clear and present danger to our national security”, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives will claim today as his party fights to avoid wipe-out in the looming elections to the Welsh Parliament.

Recent polling suggests the Conservatives could end up with just six of the 96 seats up for grabs in the May elections, with Labour winning 11, Reform UK taking 37 and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru netting 38.

Welsh Conservative leader Darren Millar will use his speech at the Conservative conference in Manchester today to urge voters to reject both Reform and Plaid. Former Conservative Welsh Secretary now supports Reform and in the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd, Laura Anne Jones has defected from the Tories to Nigel Farage’s party.

Warning of the danger of a Plaid-Labour deal, he will say: “Welsh Labour is hatching yet another stitch-up with Plaid to give us more of the same reheated, failed, nutrition-lacking, socialist fare that Wales is sick of eating, but this time with a side-order of dangerous nationalism.”

He will accuse Plaid of wanting to draw a “slate curtain” along the border with England, claiming this could “end the right to live, work, study and trade anywhere in the UK”.

Mr Millar will attack Reform, pointing to Nathan Gill, the party’s former Welsh leader, pleading guilty to taking brides to make statements supportive of Russia.

He will say: “Nathan Gill admitted to taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament. He’s now facing years in prison.”

Claiming “these stories should come as no surprise,” he will say: “Reform is a clear and present danger to our national security.”

The Welsh Tories, he will pledge, are “ready to cut Welsh income tax, scrap rates for small businesses” and “back family firms and family farms”.

But a Reform UK Wales spokesperson said: “The Conservative Party let over a 100,000 illegal migrants cross the Channel on their watch. This represents a total breakdown of law and order and a direct threat to our communities.

“That’s why, in Wales and across the UK, voters are turning to Reform.”