Petition launched over Reform councillor's co-option
A PETITION has been launched calling for a review of co-option procedures at Haverfordwest Town Council after a Reform UK candidate was appointed to a vacant seat.
Scott Thorley, who stood for Reform UK in February's Prendergast by-election, was co-opted to the town council on Thursday (Apr 17). Just two days later, political graffiti appeared at Withybush Retail Park—where he works—prompting further controversy.
Scott Thorley: Now co-opted as a town councillor he had stood for election onto Pembrokeshire County Council
The petition, organised by campaign group West Wales Stand Up to Racism, claims Thorley's appointment is incompatible with Wales' national commitment to building an anti-racist society. It calls on Pembrokeshire County Council to reaffirm its support for the Welsh Government's Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (AWAP), and for the town council to review its procedures to ensure future co-options reflect 'ethical governance and inclusivity'.
Campaigners have highlighted Reform UK's opposition to the AWAP, which they describe as a key equality strategy aimed at eradicating systemic racism in Wales by 2030. The party has publicly criticised aspects of the plan, including measures designed to increase ethnic minority representation in teaching and public life.
Graffiti messages reading 'KEIR STARMER OUT, REFORM IN! GOD SAVE US' and 'VOTE REFORM' were found sprayed in large letters across retail park walls on Saturday (Apr 19), two days after Thorley's appointment.
Speaking to The Pembrokeshire Herald, Thorley strongly condemned the vandalism: 'Whoever has done this, it is vandalism plain and simple. It doesn't help us—it's embarrassing.'
In response to the petition, Thorley issued a statement in full: 'As I have been invited to help on the anti-racist action plan by Councillor Randell Thomas-Turner, I'm really confused by their comments. I'm very much looking forward to helping integrate communities together in Haverfordwest using food, drink, culture, music and talking.
'In my experience from dealing with them they are far from fighting racism. Just because they say they're anti-racist doesn't mean they are—just as much as Jim Jones said he was the messiah.
'They don't stand for election or try and join the town councils—they are cowards and try to bully people into changing their opinions.
'Politics is about talking and helping people. They need to grow up, take their Che Guevara posters off their walls at home, and stop acting like stroppy teenagers.'
Reform UK has been openly critical of the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan, arguing that it promotes what they describe as divisive 'identity politics.' The party objects to measures such as offering higher education grants to ethnic minority trainee teachers, which they claim amounts to racial preference and undermines equality based on merit.
Reform figures have also criticised proposals to alter public spaces to accommodate cultural sensitivities, saying such policies are impractical and distract from core public concerns. Supporters of the plan argue it is a necessary step to address systemic racism and promote fairer opportunities across all sectors of Welsh society.
The petition, remains open and has been circulated online by local campaigners, comes just days after Reform UK achieved a significant breakthrough in West Wales. On May 29, Michelle Beer won a by-election in the Lliedi ward of Llanelli, becoming the first Reform UK councillor elected to Carmarthenshire County Council. Her victory marked a notable gain for the party in a traditionally Labour stronghold, reflecting its growing presence in Welsh local politics.
Reform UK has not issued a separate comment.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Under fire: Scott Thorley, pictured earlier this year with local police, says critics are more interested in 'bullying' than dialogue (Pic: Reform/Facebook)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
4 minutes ago
- Reuters
Ukraine's Zelenskiy tries to limit backlash over law curbing anti-graft agencies
KYIV, July 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promised a quick new plan on Wednesday to fight corruption, after a law curbing the independence of anti-graft agencies triggered the first street protests of the war and rare rebukes from European allies. Opposition lawmakers and European officials called on Wednesday for Kyiv to reverse the law, which Zelenskiy signed overnight. It was rushed through parliament on Tuesday a day after the security services arrested two anti-corruption officials for suspected Russian ties. In his nightly televised address, Zelenskiy said the corruption fighting agencies - an investigating agency known as NABU and a prosecutor's office known as SAPO - would continue to function "but without any Russian influence". "It all must be cleansed," he said. In the morning, he met officials including the heads of NABU and SAPO and said he would unveil a new plan to fight corruption within two weeks. "We hear society," he wrote on Telegram. "We all have a common enemy – the Russian occupiers, and the protection of the Ukrainian state requires sufficient strength of the law enforcement and anti-corruption systems, and therefore a real sense of justice." The law prompted some of Kyiv's European allies to deliver their strongest criticism of Zelenskiy's government since Russia's invasion in 2022. Several hundred people took to the streets in Kyiv and other large Ukrainian cities late on Tuesday to protest, the first such demonstrations of the war. "This is complete nonsense from the President's Office," Solomiia Telishevska, 20, a student in Kyiv on holiday, told Reuters. "This contradicts what we are fighting for and what we are striving for, namely to (join) the European Union." The law's critics say the government appears to be trying to curb the work of anti-corruption agencies to protect officials. After decades when Ukraine was seen as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, cleaning up its government has been held up as the most important condition for Kyiv to join the European Union and integrate more broadly with the West. The issue risks antagonising Kyiv's most loyal allies at a particularly risky time, when it is trying to smooth over the relationship with Washington, where President Donald Trump has frequently criticised Zelenskiy. "Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions are vital to its reform path. Restricting them would be a significant setback," Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said in a post on X. Benjamin Haddad, France's European Affairs minister, said it was not too late to reverse the decision. Yaroslav Zheleznyak, from Ukraine's opposition Holos party, said that he and several other lawmakers would propose a bill "to overturn this big shame that was adopted and signed", and also challenge the law in the Constitutional Court. The law was passed a day after Kyiv's SBU domestic security agency one NABU official on suspicion of spying for Moscow and another suspected of illegal Russian business ties. It also conducted sweeping searches and arrests of a number of agency employees on other grounds, including traffic accidents. NABU said that even if Russian infiltration was a problem, the crackdown had gone too far, making it impossible to carry out its mission. Corruption is consistently cited by investors and the general public as one of the key challenges facing Ukraine. Fighting it is a condition attached to billions in Western financial aid. Ukrainian political analysts said the legislation risked undermining society's trust in Zelenskiy during a critical stage of the war against Russia. Fierce fighting rages along more than 1,000 kilometres of the frontline. Russian troops continue their grinding advance in the east and have stepped up near daily attacks on Ukrainian cities with hundreds of drones. The public's aspiration for a European future is vital to sustaining the war effort, said Valerii Pekar, a Kyiv-based analyst: "Only democracy and the European choice give us a chance to win," he posted on Facebook.
Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ukrainians are losing confidence in Zelensky
Ukraine's wartime unity has frayed. On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters congregated in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa to campaign against the Verkhovna Rada's quick-fire passage of Bill 12414. This legislation subordinates Ukraine's two primary anti-corruption bodies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (Nabu) and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (Sapo), to the control of a prosecutor general appointed by president Volodymyr Zelensky. Bill 12414 is provoking outrage in Ukraine for two reasons. First, it is regarded as a major step backward in Ukraine's anti-corruption struggle. During his first years in power, Zelensky was accused of using criminal investigations to undermine political rivals like pro-Russian Opposition Bloc leader Viktor Medvedchuk and former president Petro Poroshenko. This perception of selective justice reduced his popularity and sullied his reputation as a reformer. Since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, Zelensky has tried to transform that image through bold anti-corruption crackdowns. After reports were released about the Ukrainian defence ministry procuring eggs for soldiers above market prices, Zelensky dismissed his widely praised defence minister Oleksii Reznikov in September 2023; though Reznikov was not personally accused of corruption, he failed to tackle it. Zelensky also fired officials in charge of military recruitment over men escaping conscription. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened investigations into five individuals for purchasing $40 million in mortar shells that were not delivered to the Ukrainian army. While these grand gestures were widely praised by the international community and corruption-weary Ukrainians, Bill 12414 has reignited old criticisms of Zelensky's politicised approach to crime-fighting. The heated turf war between the SBU and Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies, which has seen Nabu agents raided for alleged collaboration with Russia, will only polarise Ukrainian society further. Second, it deals a major blow to Ukraine's aspirations of joining the European Union (EU), and could jeopardize long-term American support for Ukraine. The EU's enlargement commissioner Marta Kos described Bill 12414 as a 'serious step back' and insisted that Ukraine's European path hinged on independent anti-corruption agencies. Critics within the Maga movement of president Donald Trump's pro-Ukraine pivot also keenly pounced on Zelensky's decision. Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, called upon Ukraine's protesters to overthrow Zelensky and reiterated her opposition to military aid to Ukraine. Bill 12414 is likely to revive calls within the Republican Party for closer auditing of arms transfers to Ukraine, which could delay vital weapons supplies to the frontline. While these rationales are ample grounds for protest, the unrest we are seeing also reflects a broader cleavage within Ukrainian society. Due to wartime martial law restrictions and the indefinite postponement of presidential elections, Zelensky has been able to consolidate near-absolute power in Ukraine. It is telling that even Zelensky's long-standing political opponents enthusiastically supported Bill 12414. Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who came third in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections after Zelensky and Poroshenko, accused Ukraine's Western partners of trying to control Kyiv through Nabu and Sapo. Aside from co-opting once potent opposition forces, Zelensky has also concentrated power in the hands of his unelected advisor Andriy Yermak and taken insufficient action against the harassment of anti-corruption whistleblowers. In January 2024, Transparency International Ukraine warned that 'attacks on journalists are becoming systematic' and in April 2024, 16 Ukrainian human rights organisations published a manifesto against these practices. These heavy-handed actions are fuelling the perception that Zelensky is becoming increasingly power-hungry and authoritarian. The slogans 'We chose Europe, not autocracy' and 'My father did not die for this' on the streets of Kyiv exemplify this trend. Even if the SBU finds hard evidence of pro-Russian activity in Nabu, which is plausible given Opposition Bloc MP Fedir Khrystenko's alleged networks, Zelensky will find it hard to play down concerns that he is exercising power for its sake. Zelensky's support for Bill 12414 is an unforced error that threatens Ukraine's greatest strength: its unflappable wartime resolve.
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
Ukraine's Zelenskiy promises joint plan to fight corruption
KYIV, July 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met anti-corruption and security officials on Wednesday and promised the creation of a joint plan to fight corruption within two weeks. "We all hear what society is saying. We see what people expect from state institutions — ensured justice and the effective functioning of each institution," he said after nationwide protests on Tuesday over limits to the independence of anti-graft bodies.
