Kinnock demands tougher response to Reform UK ahead of Senedd election

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has called on the party to examine and expose Reform UK’s “falsehoods and fictions” more rigorously ahead of elections in Wales next year.

In an exclusive interview with LabourList, Kinnock said that the increase in support for Nigel Farage’s party can only be countered effectively with accomplishment at both the national and Welsh level and “effective exposure of what Reform really are”.

He said: “I don’t think that is being done on a UK basis with the incisive force that it should be.

“It’s very good to deride Farage and his posse, but exposing and repeating their falsehoods, their fictions, their insults to the intelligence of the electorate and their evasions should be a daily activity for all progressives, and particularly the Labour Party.”

Kinnock said there is “no truth to Reform”, adding: “Even the name has been cleverly chosen to suggest that they are the party of constructive change. The more accurate name would be Deform; you look at all the propositions they’re making, from the health service to foreign policy, from the judicial system to education – their agenda is reactionary and regressive.

“Even policies that have a superficial plausibility turn out to be snake oil. They need examination and exposure, and I wish more of it was happening.”

READ MORE: Neil Kinnock: Split progressive vote Labour’s biggest election threat

Kinnock’s comments come as polls suggest a three horse race for next year’s Senedd election between Labour, Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.

Kinnock, born and raised in south Wales and the former MP for Islwyn, was critical of the new electoral system that will be used in May.

“We’ve managed to pile on a couple of extra hurdles. It’s as if one of the racehorse owners at Aintree had decided that Becher’s Brook was not high enough or wide enough and decided to dig a canal and then put a house on top of the fence.

“We’ve introduced a proportionate voting system that guarantees that there will never again be single-party government or anything like it in the Senedd, which is a pity. That doesn’t mean I’m against PR, but this system is in my view ‘reductio ad absurdum’.”

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He said that Welsh Labour will have to work to maximise their support at the election in around eight months’ time and praised leader and First Minister Eluned Morgan.

“We have a very fine leader, Eluned Eluned Morgan – I’ve known her since she was a kid.

“Her sense of duty to Wales and to Labour is incomparable. She has gone about the job in the most intelligent way, as someone who knows and understands Wales but doesn’t take anything for granted. She went out and talked to people all over the country, right through last summer, to see what their priorities were – and she’s been trying to promote those priorities.”

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