Nigel Farage says it is “too early” to answer questions about his party’s policies for next year’s Senedd election, but promises “it’ll be very different to the status quo of the last quarter of a century”.
The head of Reform UK was speaking to BBC Politics Wales as part of a series of interviews with party leaders at the start of the Senedd term.
He hinted at plans to vary income tax, and said they would “use every devolved power we possibly can” to make life easier for businesses.
His party, alongside Plaid Cymru, is performing well in some recent polls and is challenging Welsh Labour for dominance.
Reform UK has featured in many of the other parties’ political speeches during the recent party conference season, with Labour’s First Minister Eluned Morgan admitting her party had a “hell of a fight” on their hands.
With a realistic chance that Reform may be the biggest party at next May’s ballot for the Senedd, pressure is mounting on the party to outline more of the policies that could define a Welsh Reform government.
Speaking this week, Nigel Farage said: “Hang on a sec, it’s mid October. The elections are a very, very long way away.”
He did not deny he was using Wales as a “political theatre to get ahead in Westminster”, adding, “every election I fight is political theatre to get ahead in Westminster”.
However he insisted his party was taking this campaign seriously.
He told the BBC he had a “full-time team” working on policies and he had been meeting with the former Conservative Welsh Secretary David Jones.
“Let me promise you something, we’re taking this very very seriously indeed but mid-October is too early to give answers to all of these things. But all I can promise you is it’ll be very different to the status quo of the last quarter of a century.”
Mr Farage said his party would bring “fresh thinking” on the NHS and that the public will “hear more on that” in future.
On taxation powers, he cryptically said “watch this space”.
Pushed on whether he was considering varying income tax bands – something no Welsh government has done – he said “we are thinking in all sorts of ways that I think are going to make it a very interesting campaign”.
He added his party wanted to “use every devolved power we possibly can to make the lives of small businesses and other bigger businesses easier in Wales.
“And that is what we’ve got to devise for our manifesto coming up for May, to say we’re actually on the side of people working and people having jobs,” he said.
Questions have been raised about Farage’s relationship with the former leader of Reform in Wales, Nathan Gill, who has admitted taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament.
Asked about his relationship with Gill, Farage said: “you can be let down by people, that happens, but in his case, particularly shocking”.
“What he has done is not just corrupt, it’s frankly treacherous in many ways and he’s going to get a long prison sentence and he’s going to deserve it,” he said.
Farage said he had “zero” idea, but added “the only thing that was odd in retrospect was a trip Nathan Gill took to Ukraine”.
The Reform leader said he told Gill not to go because “it’s one of the most corrupt countries on earth”, but he said Gill defied him and went anyway.
Asked if that raised his suspicious, he said it didn’t: “I just thought this is an MEP being offered a free trip somewhere.”
He denied having heard any of the pro-Russian statements made by Gill in the European Parliament because he was “travelling across Wales, Scotland, England” campaigning in the European elections in 2019.
Pressed on whether his close relationship with Gill over many years showed bad judgement, he emphatically pushed back.
Asked if he turned a blind eye to Gill’s behaviour, Farage told me “that question is frankly beneath you”.
He said: “Of course I would never have done anything like that. If I’d done that, I would have been complicit in it, wouldn’t I?”
The whole interview is available to watch on Sunday on BBC One Wales at 10:00 BST.
