Reform UK’s only member of the Welsh parliament, Laura Anne Jones, has been suspended for two weeks without pay after using an offensive racial slur in an office WhatsApp group. The suspension, voted on by the Senedd on Wednesday, follows an investigation by the standards commissioner into comments Jones made in August 2023 about Chinese espionage.
Jones, who defected from the Conservatives to Reform in the summer, used the slur in a discussion about TikTok and Chinese government surveillance. A report by the Senedd’s standards of conduct committee found Jones also failed to reprimand a staff member who posted an Islamophobic message in a separate WhatsApp exchange in November 2023. The committee concluded that her conduct “fell far below the standards expected” and indicated “little respect towards others”.
Apologising to the Senedd before her suspension, Jones said she “never meant to cause any offence”. She added that the process and leaks to the press had negatively affected her family and her health, stating she had “nearly taken her own life”. The standards commissioner cleared her of separate complaints relating to false expenses claims.
The suspension is a further blow to Reform UK’s ambitions in Wales, coming just four weeks after the party lost the Caerphilly by-election to Plaid Cymru. That defeat was seen by many as a rejection of Reform’s anti-immigration stance. Reform leader Nigel Farage had previously expressed confidence that the allegations against Jones would “all go away”.
Plaid Cymru described Jones’s language as “vile and completely unacceptable”, while Welsh Labour said the incident showed “the same sort of language is part of the Reform UK playbook”. A Reform UK Wales spokesperson said Jones had “rightly apologised” for comments made in a private WhatsApp group.
