Reform UK’s leader in Wales quit this afternoon following his arrest on suspicion of assault and coercive behaviour, in a fresh blow to Nigel Farage.
Dan Thomas was missing from today’s session of First Minister’s Questions in the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, with a spokesman for his party saying beforehand that he would be ‘absent for personal reasons’.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Mr Thomas said he had been ‘reported to the police and was released without charge’.
He stressed that he had done nothing wrong but did not want the fallout from his arrest to distract from Reform’s work in Wales.
It came as Gwent Police told the Daily Mail this afternoon that a 45-year-old man from the Aberbargoed area was arrested on Sunday, September 13.
While the force did not confirm the identity of the arrested man, they added that he was taken in ‘on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour’.
It added that the man had been ‘bailed pending further enquiries’.
In a statement, Dan Thomas said: ‘With deep regret, I am now standing down from this position due to personal reasons’
The former Conservative leader of Barnet Council, Wales-born Mr Thomas defected to Reform UK in the summer of 2025
Mr Thomas’s statement read: ‘It has been the honour of my life to have been the leader of Reform Wales and see this party go from zero to 34 elected members and become the largest opposition group in Welsh history.
‘With deep regret, I am now standing down from this position due to personal reasons.
‘Over the weekend, I was reported to the police and was released without charge. I stress that I have done nothing wrong, but I do not want the coming headlines to be a distraction from the fantastic work our Senedd team is doing in holding this government to account.
‘I will continue to serve my constituents in Casnewydd Islwyn [Newport and Islwyn] and will fully back whoever the group selects as its next leader.’
Nigel Farage’s party is currently under fire over a series of financial stories, most recently after Crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne stunned the political establishment by announcing at the weekend that they would each give Reform £36million – the biggest ever single donations to a British political party.
Reform’s deputy leader in Wales Helen Jenner, stood in for Mr Thomas to challenge the Plaid Cymru First Minister about yesterday’s event with fellow nationalist leaders from Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mr Thomas was born in South Wales before moving to London for his career, where he climbed the political ladder to become the Conservative leader of Barnet Council between 2019 and 2022.
He defected to Reform UK in the summer of 2025, before quitting as a London councillor in December that year and returning to Wales with his family.
He told a party event in Newport he had ‘fond memories’ of growing up in Wales and did not want to leave when he turned 18.
‘But for many Welshmen and women, good opportunities in Wales are few and far between,’ he said.
‘The well paying jobs and the high flying career paths are simply not there. So I left to build a successful career in financial services in London while serving my new community as a councillor and council leader.’
He led Reform to a breakthrough result in Wales, becoming leader of the opposition with 34 Reform AMs.
But the party fell short of their stretch goal of taking the Welsh Parliament, with Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth securing the top job.
Mr Thomas’s predecessor as Welsh Reform leader, Nathan Gill, was imprisoned last year for accepting bribes to give pro-Russian speeches
In a further blow to Reform Wales, AM Sarah Cooper-Lesadd defected to Plaid Cymru today
Reacting to his resignation, the Conservatives’ shadow Welsh Secretary Mims Davies said: ‘The dire state Reform in the Senedd finds itself in should be another warning of what could lie ahead if they were ever entrusted to run the national government. Dan Thomas MS was hand-picked by Nigel Farage MP to lead his party in Wales, yet within months their leader has had to stand down.
‘Reform are hitting the news for all the wrong reasons – massive crypto donations, on top of the jailing of Nathan Gill for pro-Russian bribery.
‘All this raises serious and deep questions about Reform’s judgement and leadership at every level.’
Nathan Gill, Mr Thomas’s predecessor as Reform’s Welsh leader, was jailed for over 10 years last November for taking tens of thousands of pounds in bribes to give pro-Russian speeches.
And in a further blow to Reform UK’s fortunes in Wales yesterday, one of their other Assembly Members defected to the Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru.
Sarah Cooper-Lesadd, who represents the Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg constituency, issued a damning statement accusing Mr Farage’s party of being ‘not serious about governing Wales’.
‘They are far more interested in division, opposition and headlines than in finding solutions. There is a real appetite in the group to want the government to fail, and no interest in what that failure would mean for the people we represent.’
The double-blow in Cardiff comes after a trialling few weeks for Mr Farage, who remains dogged by questions about donations and money.
At his party conference in Birmingham earlier this month, he was forced to suspend two of his most senior advisors who were caught in an undercover ‘illegal’ donations sting.
The Reform leader insisted no laws had been broken after undercover footage emerged of his aides, Dan Jukes and James Orr, discussing taking money from a fake US businessman.
