Tory leader promises 'credible plan' to 'fix Wales'

Darren Millar

The leader of the Conservatives in the Senedd has told his party's conference in Manchester that Reform and Plaid Cymru represent "dangerous" choices for voters at next year's Senedd election.

Darren Millar says the Conservatives are the only party with a "credible plan" to fix Wales.

The Conservatives are trailing in fourth place in recent polls after returning a record number of MSs at the 2021 Senedd election.

Millar's comments come just days after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted she will not turn the party's fortunes round "overnight".

The Welsh government is currently controlled by Labour, with some polls suggesting Plaid Cymru and Reform could do well at next May's election.

Millar gave his view on a potential Labour-Plaid coalition in government.

"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 said.

"And I say 'dangerous' because Plaid's extremism and nationalism is just that – dangerous. They want to tear Wales from the United Kingdom and draw a slate curtain along our border. A curtain which could end the right to live, work, study and trade anywhere in the UK.

"Their plans would cost the average Welsh working family thousands each and every year. Let me be clear. Plaid Cymru is a risk to Welsh jobs, pensions, and our economic prosperity."

He believes Reform is "a clear and present danger to our national security".

His speech also referred to news that Reform UK's former leader in Wales had admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia while being a Member of the European Parliament and said it came as "no surprise".

But he said "there is hope", adding: "Because we Welsh Conservatives have a credible plan to fix Wales.

"We are ready to cut Welsh income tax, scrap rates for small businesses, back family firms and family farms, eliminate wasteful spending, invest in our roads, protect frontline public services, restore discipline and drive up standards in our schools, tackle the crisis in the Welsh NHS, and defend our United Kingdom."

Mims Davies MP is the Conservative Party's shadow Welsh secretary

Speaking from the conference, shadow Welsh secretary Mims Davies said Reform was not even a "right of centre" party as it tried to appeal to all people.

And she described Farage as "Nigel Mirage, as a I like to call him, the capitalist, populist and socialist when it suits him".

She also described Plaid Cymru as a "party that believes in the nation of sanctuary".

"Immigration and migration issues are the problem of our time and that does not chime with what people are worried about in Wales," she said.

"The opportunity for us to fight back in the Senedd is a golden one," she told BBC Politics Wales.

"People have, of course, written us off because it suits them.

"Labour are dead, frankly. People are talking about us needing a fight back.

"Hold on, after 14 months in government and 25 years in Cardiff Bay, people are waking up finally to the failures [of Labour] in Wales."

She said her party was committed to intervening in the NHS and bringing in academy and frees schools and opportunities for social mobility.

"We are the only party with a plan on migration and we are the only party that really cares about the people."