Welsh Tory leader's staff defect to Reform on eve of conference

Two senior aides to the leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh Parliament have defected to Reform UK just days before the Tories' party conference.

The defections emerged on the eve of Friday's conference in Llandudno, where leader Darren Millar told members that Reform "is not a serious party" and is more interested in selling merchandise than forming a government.

Millar's former deputy chief of staff Zak Weaver and senior communications officer Tomos Llewelyn quit the Tories to work for Members of the Senedd (MSs) representing Nigel Farage's Reform.

Millar said before his speech that "nobody" is interested in who works in his office.

Millar is making his pitch for the 7 May Senedd election this weekend, with opinion polls suggesting the Tories could come fourth.

In the run up to the election Millar has seen a series of high-profile defections from his party to Reform, including two of its former MSs - Laura Anne Jones and James Evans.

In the UK Parliament former Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick defected last month.

On Thursday BBC Wales learned that the two former Welsh Tory senior backroom staff members Weaver and Llewelyn had also left.

Weaver is also standing as a Tory candidate in an upcoming by-election for Penarth town council.

He is expected to make clear that he plans to become a Reform councillor if he is elected.

Millar told the BBC in January he was not expecting any further defections among his group of politicians in the Senedd.

On Friday before his speech, Millar said: "Nobody is in the slightest bit interested in who does or doesn't work in my office."

He said the public was instead "interested in the scandals engulfing the UK Labour government".

He said the scandals included Sir Keir Starmer appointing his former communications director to the House of Lords, and the Labour leader's 2024 decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as US ambassador.

In his conference speech Millar attacked Plaid Cymru and Reform, who polls suggest are vying to win the Senedd election.

"Plaid want people to think they are a bunch of friendly moderates, but they are nothing of the sort. They are extremists," he said.

He said a Plaid government "would focus their time, energy and attention on their ultimate aim, to rip Wales apart from the rest of the UK.

"Independence would jeopardise people's pensions, and ability to live, work, or study in other parts of the United Kingdom."

Plaid Cymru has said it would not try to hold a referendum on independence in a first term of a Plaid government, should it win the election.

Millar said Reform "love to wag their fingers and identify problems, but they offer no credible solutions whatsoever".

"They don't want to be in government next May after those elections to the Senedd," he will say.

"Nigel Farage himself has openly acknowledged that his party is not ready to govern. He has simply said that his aim is that he wants Reform to be the largest opposition party."

"Reform is not a serious party. They are a limited company more interested in selling football shirts and merchandise at events, than running a country."

Millar also described Wales as "broken" after 27 years of Welsh Labour government rule, with failing education and health systems.

"Labour has absolutely no solutions to these problems. They have failed our schools. Failed our NHS and failed our economy," he will say.

"Wales is the sick man of Britain. It's not good enough."