Welsh Conservative leader Darren Millar promises ‘credible plan’

The leader of the Conservatives in the Senedd is expected to tell his party’s conference in Manchester later that Reform and Plaid Cymru represent “dangerous” choices for voters at next year’s Senedd election.

Darren Millar will say that 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 will give 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 will tell the conference.

“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 will refer 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 will say “they 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.”