First Reform member in Welsh Parliament after Tory defection
Nigel Farage announced on Tuesday afternoon that Laura Anne Jones, the current member for South Wales East, had switched allegiances.
Speaking at a press conference at the Royal Welsh Show, the Reform leader said: 'I am delighted to say that today is a big step forward for Reform UK in Wales.'
The defection came as Reform steps up its efforts to win power in Wales at the Senedd elections scheduled to take place in May next year.
Reform is aiming to end Labour's 26 years of domination in Wales and Mr Farage said his party was 'going all out to win'.
Ms Jones said she had not informed the Conservative Party of her defection.
Speaking alongside Mr Farage, Ms Jones said: 'After 31 years in the Conservative Party I have just suddenly felt that the Conservative Party was unrecognisable to me.'
She added: 'I truly believe that I have joined a party in Reform UK that listens to people.'
Ms Jones said that 'Wales is a complete mess' and she believed Mr Farage and Reform can 'take Wales forward into a great place'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
27 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Nigel Farage to unveil mystery 'special guest' in major Reform press conference TODAY
Nigel Farage will today host a Reform UK press conference - with a mystery special guest. The party leader will address the nation, and journalists, in central London from 11am. Previous such events have seen the MP for Clacton announce defections to his party. Sir Jake Berry, a former leading Conservative, was among the latest to switch sides, following ex-Welsh secretary David Jones who earlier this month announced he enrolled as a member. While a defection could be on the cards, Mr Farage has also been joined by well-known faces during press conferences. During the election campaign, boxing champion Derek Chisora often showed up to lend his support. Attention-loving Mr Farage held a press conference just last week, where he unveiled a senior Tory who used a racist slur in a WhatsApp chat is his latest Reform recruit. At an event in Wales, a grinning Mr Farage crowed that Welsh Parliament member Laura Anne Jones had switched sides. Ms Jones has also previously apologised for saying she would "like to do a spot of Chav shooting" on Facebook - and said it is "a shame that isn't legal". 09:55Sophie Huskisson Who could be the special guest? Previous such events have seen Nigel Farage announce defections to his party. Attention-loving Mr Farage held a press conference only just last week, where he unveiled a senior Tory who used a racist slur in a WhatsApp chat is his latest Reform recruit. Sir Jake Berry, a former leading Conservative, iss among the latest Tory heavyweights to switch sides, following ex-Welsh secretary David Jones who earlier this month announced he enrolled as a member. While a defection could be on the cards, Mr Farage has also been joined by well-known faces during press conferences. During the election campaign, boxing champion Derek Chisora often showed up to lend his support.
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Chinese hackers have seized control. How did we let this happen?
A civilisation that cannot defend itself really should not expect to survive, and after the latest cybersecurity news, I wonder how it can. An official advisory was recently sent out to the US military, warning that all forces must now assume their networks have been breached. The enemy is inside the house. What it means is that no system connected to the internet can be defended. Our own national cybersecurity agency asked UK businesses to make this presumption in 2020. The reason this hasn't been bigger news is that we've become fatalistic and weary, as one cybersecurity attack follows another. So when we discovered in early July that Chinese hackers had gained control of Microsoft servers at hundreds of US government agencies – including the US nuclear weapons agency – it was just another hacking story. What made this one noteworthy was that there wasn't immediately a fix or a patch, Microsoft admitted last Tuesday. Incredibly, confirmation of the US military's 'assume breach' alert had to be dragged out of the Department of Defense via Freedom of Information Act requests by a campaigning non-profit called Property of the People. These developments are the latest stage in an ongoing state-sponsored Chinese campaign, in which hacking has evolved from widespread commercial espionage a decade ago into something far more threatening. The latest phases, Salt Typhoon and now Volt Typhoon, are meticulous and sophisticated. They target not just government agencies like the National Guard, and China-critical MPs like Sir Iain Duncan Smith, but also private sector companies in the energy, telecoms, transport and water sectors. Ciaran Martin, former head of NCSC, the cybersecurity centre based at GCHQ, says that China's capabilities have been transformed. 'Now think of dozens or even hundreds of [individual] hacks at the same time – 'everything, everywhere, all at once' in the words of Jen Easterly, recently departed head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.' Software attacks on our computer systems can create unique damage in ways that conventional warfare cannot. Let's consider two. While aerial bombing can produce spectacular instant results, targets can be disassembled prior to attack, and can be quickly rebuilt after the attack. Both happened with the recent attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities. But recovering from cyber attacks is much harder. Ask the British Library, which has still not restored all of its services. 'Printed catalogues and handlists are available in our Reading Rooms', it still advises visitors to its website. The attack took place in October 2023. A second way in which cyber attacks now present a unique challenge is the ability of Chinese hackers to 'live off the land' after they break through. Rather like special forces embedded behind enemy lines, hackers conceal themselves undetected for months or years. To the guardians of the network, they are just another innocent user. 'Both Salt and Volt Typhoon were in play for years before being detected,' writes Martin. 'And they are strategic compromises of the West on a scale hitherto unseen by any other cyber power.' Not only do we not know when the attack is over, we don't even know when it has begun. How did this happen? If I haven't depressed you enough, this is where it gets particularly troubling. Cybersecurity is a gnarly failure of accountability and regulation that spans decades of indifference, and implicates business complacency and government apathy. The internet protocols (IP) we use today are completely rotten. The great and the good of the IT and telecommunications industries spent the entire 1980s in international committees devising complex secure networking protocols, only to be met with mistrust and specifications no one really wanted. Fed up with waiting, we adopted today's protocols, which were cheap and simple to implement, but not secure. Now, the international standards bodies that might devise a successor to IP are dominated by China. When they fail, suppliers can hide behind licensing agreements and expensive lawyers. No one goes to prison for bad security design. Their customers – us – are guilty of negligence too. Salt Typhoon took advantage of a bug in Cisco routers that users had not bothered to fix for seven years. As a society, we rush to implement technologies without thinking too hard about externalities. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) opens up lots of new holes, and also lowers the bar so that even the technically unskilled can plant hacks. All in all, then, this may not seem a good time to force Britons to use a new government identity service. Especially when you know that 'red team' penetration testing proved in March that this could be penetrated by hostile foreign agents without them being detected. This is what Baroness Neville Jones calls 'a piece of critical infrastructure'. Chinese agents may already be 'living off the land' inside the One Login system, on which your government wallet has been built, and soon perhaps, your digital ID. But don't expect Peter Kyle, the Science and Technology Minister, to put the brakes on the One Login project when he's its biggest fan. To survive and prosper, we need serious and technically aware people in his position, who listen to the security professionals. Kyle appeared on Newsnight last week wearing jeans and a T-shirt and trainers, all of which were intended to signal to viewers his youthful love of digital technology. He is 54.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Tasers to be issued to staff in male prisons in government crack down on violence
Tasers are set to be issued to some staff in male prisons as the government attempts to crack down on 'unacceptable' record levels of violence. Specialist officers from the Operational Response and Resilience Unit based in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and Doncaster, South Yorkshire, will be the first to become equipped with electric stun guns when the pilot launches on Monday. as she attended the base in Kidlington last week. The trial in England and Wales will run until enough data has been collected to determine if Tasers should be more widely used, according to the Ministry of Justice – but Ms Mahmood said she hoped to have updates in the autumn. The launch comes after rates of assaults on prison staff reached record levels last year, rising by 13 per cent in the 12 months up to December 2024, according to government data. There were also 10,496 assaults on staff in the 12 months to September 2024 – a 23 per cent increase from the previous 12 months and a new peak. Unions welcomed the new trial, but called on the government to address the roots of violence in jail. Last week, officers demonstrated how they would use Tasers on violent inmates in scenarios where there is a significant threat to safety – such as hostage situations or riots. Speaking to reporters at the Kidlington base, Ms Mahmood said: 'I inherited a situation with completely unacceptable levels of violence. I'm not willing to tolerate that. I'm determined to do everything I can to keep prison staff safe. 'They have been asking for Tasers to be allowed to be used in our prison estate for years and years and years, and I'm very pleased to have been able to greenlight this trial.' In April this year, Manchester Arena plotter Hashem Abedi targeted prison staff at HMP Frankland with boiling oil and homemade weapons in a planned ambush. Four prison officers were injured at the jail in Brasside, County Durham, with three taken to hospital. 'The incident of Frankland has really forced the pace on further roll-out of these measures,' Ms Mahmood said. Southport killer Axel Rudakubana also allegedly attacked a prison officer at HMP Belmarsh in May by pouring boiling water over them. Union bosses called for officers to be given stab vests and protective equipment, with Ms Mahmood announcing in June that officers would be told to wear body armour at close supervision centres, separation centres and segregation units in the highest categories of prisons in England and Wales. The trial will use the Taser 7 model, which generates 50,000 volts when fired, with the voltage dropping to 1,500 volts on contact with the skin to incapacitate the target. The T7 model is also a two-shot weapon, enabling officers to shoot a second time in the event they miss their target the first time. The Tasers will be worn by officers on their tactical vest in a secure holster, making the weapon visible to inmates as a deterrent, officers told Ms Mahmood last week. They added that the device also collects data – such as how long it was discharged for – which will contribute to the trial. Officers already have access to batons and Pava spray, a synthetic form of pepper spray, in men's prisons in the public sector. The Ministry of Justice announced in April Pava spray is due to be made available 'in limited circumstances' to a select number of specialist staff at the three public sector young offender institutions – including YOI Werrington, Wetherby and Feltham A. The Taser trial is part of a £40 million package announced last month to boost security across the prison estate, including £10 million specifically for anti-drone measures such as new netting and reinforced windows, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said on Monday. 'Officers will be subject to robust accountability measures, each deployment of a taser will be reviewed,' a spokesperson for the MoJ added. A spokesperson for the Prison Officers' Association (POA) said: 'The POA will always support any initiative that will help protect our members. 'However, as welcome as this initiative is we need to address the reasons why prison officers need Tasers in the first place. 'Violence in our prisons is out of control and apathetic prison managers would rather put the prison regime before the safety of their staff. 'We urgently need action to address overcrowding, understaffing, drugs and the other root causes of prison violence.'
