A former Reform UK councillor has defected to Plaid Cymru, revealing she voted Remain in the Brexit referendum and now backs Welsh independence, in what is a remarkable political journey for someone who until recently sat under Nigel Farage’s banner.
Sarah Cooper-Lesadd made the switch official this week, wasting no time in turning on her former party, saying Reform is “falling apart at the seams” and that she no longer recognises what it stands for.
The defection raises obvious questions about how someone with pro-EU and pro-independence views ended up in Reform in the first place, but Cooper-Lesadd has been open about the fact that her political thinking has shifted significantly. She joins Plaid Cymru at a time when the party is pushing hard to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional Welsh-speaking heartlands in the north and west.
Cooper-Lesadd did not hold back when describing the state of Reform from the inside. Her picture of the party is one of disorganisation and internal chaos, with members and elected representatives left without proper support or direction. For someone who took on a public role as a councillor, that kind of dysfunction makes the day-to-day job of representing constituents pretty much impossible.
The Brexit revelation is particularly striking. Reform and its predecessor UKIP were built almost entirely around the campaign to leave the European Union, so admitting she voted Remain puts her at odds with the very foundation of the movement she joined. It suggests her original reasons for signing up with Reform had more to do with frustration at the political mainstream than any deep ideological commitment to the hard right.
That frustration is something Plaid Cymru will be hoping to channel. The party has been making a deliberate effort to reach voters who feel ignored or let down by Labour, which has dominated Welsh politics for decades. Picking up a defector from Reform, of all places, sends a signal that Plaid sees itself as a home for people who are disillusioned across the political spectrum, not just traditional nationalists.
Welsh independence remains a minority position in Wales according to most polls, but support has grown steadily over the past decade. The independence movement here is quite different in character to the one in Scotland, and Plaid has been working to define what independence would actually look like in practical terms for Welsh communities.
Cooper-Lesadd backing independence after her time in Reform is the kind of crossover story that independence supporters will point to as evidence that the idea is gaining traction in unexpected places. Whether it translates into broader electoral shifts remains to be seen.
For Reform, losing a councillor who is now publicly describing the party as a mess is an embarrassment, even if the party nationally is riding high in UK-wide opinion polls. Building a functioning local government presence has been one of Reform’s biggest challenges since its surge in support, and stories of internal dysfunction do nothing to help that effort in Wales.
Plaid Cymru will no doubt be hoping this is the start of a trend rather than a one-off. With Senedd elections on the horizon, every gain matters.