Who is Llŷr Powell, Reform’s candidate in the Caerphilly Senedd by-election?

Llŷr Powell is Reform UK’s candidate for the Senedd by-election in Caerphilly this Thursday (23 October).

Why is there a by-election and what’s at stake?

The by-election was triggered after the constituency’s Labour Senedd member Hefin David sadly died unexpectedly. Currently Reform has only one Senedd member, Laura Anne Jones, who recently defected from the Tories. Jones says Reform is “not ruling out” abolishing the Welsh Parliament (Senedd). 

A recent Survation poll indicates it is neck and neck between Reform (42%) and Plaid (38%) in Caerphilly ahead of Thursday’s vote. While Plaid believes in internationalism and says there is no such thing as illegal immigration, Reform is doubling down on anti-migrant rhetoric. This is despite the 2021 census showing that immigration in the South Wales town is 2.9%. That is the lowest immigration rate of all Wales’ 22 councils.

What do we know about Powell?

Powell, 30, has mostly worked in press and communications in politics. He has been active in Nigel Farage-run parties for some time, having been involved in UKIP, the Brexit Party and now Reform. He was part of UKIP’s notorious youth faction, Young Independence, which has multiple links to the far-right. He also ran as a Tory council candidate in Cardiff in 2022, adding yet more weight to claims that Reform is a “Tory 2.0” party.

Nathan Gill

Powell even worked for and was friends with the disgraced former Reform in Wales leader, Nathan Gill. Gill recently pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to make pro-Russia statements in the European Parliament. He was charged with accepting bribes between 6 December 2018 and 18 July 2019 while he was a Brexit Party MEP. Powell said he didn’t work for him at the time when he committed these offences, but has refused to say the exact dates when he worked for him. Powell says he was Gill’s constituency caseworker and mostly worked for him in Wales, but went to Brussels from time to time. 

Powell has denied any knowledge of Gill’s crimes at the time, saying that he found out about it “through the press like everyone else”. He said he “found it a complete and utter betrayal”.

Powell was a director at a pro-Brexit and ‘free market’ think tank called the ‘Centre for Welsh Studies’ (CWS) between January 2017 and July 2019. Gill was on the board of advisors at the CWS. 

The CWS has been criticised for not being transparent about the origins of its funding  think tank. In November 2020, a Wales Online article stated that CWS had received funding from The Atlas Network, a US-based organisation that seeks to promote right-wing free market ideology across the world. 

Powell has refused to say when he last had contact with Gill. He seems to suggest it was on Brexit night (presumably 31 January 2020) but won’t commit to saying an exact date. He has largely dodged media questioning about his associations to Gill and has claimed being asked legitimate questions amounts to a smear campaign.

Anti-trans and homophobic posts

Farage’s Senedd candidate has also been the subject of an investigation. While he was head of communications and engagement at Scouts Cymru, Powell was investigated for sharing posts that were anti-trans, homophobic, and politically biased.

From his X account, which he linked to his Scouts Cymru bio, Powell liked tweets that stated that the LGBTQ+ flag is “absolutely disgusting” and anti-refugee posts which referred to asylum seekers as “illegal immigrants”.

He also voiced support for Conservative candidates on the page, despite the Scouts Cymru rule that the Scout movement is “not connected with any political body”.

Powell was investigated by Scouts Cymru as his social media activity went against their organisational policies. 

To date, no public update has been issued confirming the outcome of Scouts Cymru’s investigation.

A strange photoshopped photo

On the subject of social media, on 4 October Powell shared photo of people out campaigning with him. But something about the image just didn’t look right…

Investigative journalist in Wales, Will Hayward, wrote on X: “There is something odd about this picture that the Reform candidate for Caerphilly Llyr Powell has put out.

“It looks edited. Someone removed perhaps? Can’t imagine his former employer Nathan Gill (who has just pleaded guilty to accepting Russian bribes) would have been there.”

He has angered the local Ukrainian community

Powell has made attacking the Nation of Sanctuary policy a central pillar of his election campaign. His campaign leaflet has slammed the policy as a £55 million “scheme for asylum seekers” and has said it is a waste of money.

Ukrainian residents in Caerphilly have accused Reform of spreading ‘false and misleading’ statements about the Nation of Sanctuary scheme. The Caerphilly Ukrainians group has pointed out that more than £45 million out of the £55 million spent has been used to support Ukrainian refugees, who are not classed as asylum seekers. 

Yuliia Bond, a member of the Ukrainian refugee community in Caerphilly recently told Nation Cymru:  “They want to scrap a scheme that mainly supports Ukrainians, spreading false claims and misinformation to make it their main political agenda.”

The group made a complaint to the council’s Returning Officer about the “misinformation” campaign.

During a visit to Caerphilly on 10 October, Farage said: “They [Ukrainians] should be entirely [in a different category]. Actually it’s completely wrong that they’re put into that basket. It should be in a separate box – no question about it.”

However, since then, Reform in Caerphilly has not changed its messaging about the Nation of Sanctuary scheme.

Powell is pushing Reform’s anti-migrant agenda hard

That is despite 97.1% of the Caerphilly population being UK-born. In a BBC debate last week, he was pulled up on this. A young man in the audience, Cole, asked Powell to explain how immigration was a problem in the town, given local levels of immigration are 2.9%. 

Cole challenged Powell for failing to answer the question, pointing out that when asked about immigration in Caerphilly, he had only talked about immigration across the UK. Cole’s Mum, Alison, then said to Powell: “We’ve lived here all our lives and I have never felt so unwelcome in my own hometown as I do since your party came into Caerphilly with all the rhetoric that you bring in.”

She added: “I have to say to my sons, please don’t go there, please don’t do this and quite frankly Mr Powell, I blame you for that.”

Powell failed to explain how immigration is an issue in Caerphilly, and later admitted that immigration policy is set by Westminster. By his own admission, immigration is not a devolved policy matter, so the Senedd, which he is running for, cannot legislate on it.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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