Nigel Farage revealed Reform’s first member of the Welsh Senedd today – a defector from the Conservatives who once said ‘chavs’ should be shot and apologised for using a racist term for Chinese people.
Laura Anne Jones, 46, posed with the leader at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show today after ditching the Tories.
She is the latest Welsh Conservative to line up with Mr Farage, following former Welsh secretary David Jones.
Ms Jones today said she Reform was now ‘the only party that now represents decent hard-working people’.
But it comes four years after the AS for South Wales East was forced to apologise for Facebook posts from around 2012 mocking working class voters.
In posts from a period when she was not in office she said she ‘would like to do a spot of Chav shooting’, and said it was ‘a shame that isn’t legal.’
When they were found in 2021 she said: ‘I do not condone the use of violence in any form, and my flippant use of language was unacceptable and inappropriate, which I deeply regret.
And last year she was forced to apologise again after it was revealed she used a racist term in a Whatsapp chat about the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.
She later said the term was ‘unacceptable and I deeply regret using it’.
Announcing her defection, Ms Jones said: ‘The Conservatives failed us when last in power, with letdown after letdown, and now Labour in Westminster are just like Labour in Wales, completely incompetent, with totally the wrong priorities and have become a joke that isn’t funny.
‘Reform is the only party that now represents decent hard-working people, with traditional, patriotic values. People who love their country and are as devastated as I am at the erosion of our beautiful country and its values, faith and traditions.’
Welsh Conservative Leader Darren Millar said he was disappointed by her decision to defect, but added: ‘We wish Laura all the very best in her new high tax and high spend party.’
Mr Farage also risked annoying farmers at the show. While unveiling Ms Jones, he repeated his view that imports of US-reared chlorine-treated chicken should be allowed in Britain.
He told reporters it should be up to consumers to make a choice, a view he has aired previously.
