Reform UK Wales is Doing Politics Properly
Updated: 3 hours ago
Mr Joe Martin asks his question in the Senedd (10-11-26).
The overreaction of the Presiding Officers towards a Reform UK Member of the Senedd who asked a question about immigration levels, represents the fearful involuntary reflex of a political establishment being challenged on its unsustainable policies; and it is all good because it helps to reveal the open border advocates and expose the fallacies and insecurities of their position, says Alistair McConnachie.
On Tuesday 10th November 2026, Joe Martin a Reform UK Member of the Senedd asked the following question from the floor.
His question, which appears to have been directed at a Minister in the Plaid Cymru administration asked:
"Can I have a statement from your government on the demographic replacement of white British people taking place in the UK, because the scale of change has been breathtaking. Mass immigration and differing birth rates mean that, in just 37 years' time, in 2063, we will be a minority in our own country, and that change has already taken place in London, Birmingham, Leicester, Slough, Luton and Manchester, and I don’t want it to happen here. Indeed, at every opportunity, the majority of the electorate have wanted less immigration so that their nation can be preserved.
"A nation is not an economic zone, it is not a hotel and neither is it a charity. It's a family which is capable of absorbing people of all races if done at a sensible rate, but not if it is replaced altogether."
Well, no statement was forthcoming!
Instead, Heledd Fychan MS, the Plaid Cymru Chief Whip responded by asking for a ruling from the Deputy Presiding Officer:
"Can I ask the Deputy Lywydd [Deputy Presiding Officer] for a ruling on whether that question and comments made are in line with our standing orders and behaviours or accepted responsibilities within the Senedd?"
Later in the session, the Presiding Officer himself, Huw Irranca-Davies, responded [our emphases]:
"Ahead to the next item, I have a ruling to report to the Chamber relating to business earlier this afternoon. Having discussed with the Deputy Presiding Officer and reviewed the record alongside Standing Order 13.9 we consider that the contribution made by Joe Martin, Member of the Senedd, during the business statement was unnecessarily provocative and deliberately offensive. Whilst it is always possible to raise legitimate policy matters, in relation to immigration in this Chamber the focus of the contribution on race and ethnicity was clearly discriminatory, offensive, and detracted from the dignity of the Senedd.
"This is not the first time the Member has pushed the boundaries in his contributions and I have previously warned him about his conduct. Until I receive a clear indication that the Member understands the boundaries of acceptable parliamentary conduct and apologises to this Chamber, we will not be calling the Member to speak."
The response of Reform UK's opponents – which appears to include the Presiding Officer who was elected as a Labour Co-op MS, and his Deputy Kerry Ferguson elected as a Plaid Cymru MS – was not to engage but to condemn, silence and punish.
WHERE IS THE OFFENCE?
Mr Martin's question was devoid of any malice towards any person or group of people. There was no hatred or hurtfulness directed at anyone or any group. There was no strong language. The delivery was not angry or over-wrought. Indeed, it was all very mild [as can be seen from the video at x.com/SeneddWaste/status/2120224698294304861 ]
Yet, the first instinct of Ms Fychan was to try to get the question shut down by appealing to the rules of the Senedd.
The Presiding Officers considered it to be "unnecessarily provocative and deliberately offensive", and "clearly discriminatory", and that it "detracts from the dignity of the Senedd".
In what world is any of that true?
Where is the "provocation"? Where is the "offence"? Where is the "discrimination"? Where are the words or actions that "detract from the dignity of the Senedd"? What is not "legitimate" about it? How has the "boundary of acceptable parliamentary conduct" been breached?
WHAT the OVERREACTION TELLS US
We see a system scrambling to silence a matter that it instinctively – if not consciously – understands threatens the ruling orthodoxy. They sense an implied threat to the status quo and it must be crushed.
HERE is a "SECRET" of POLITICS
It is perfectly possible to utterly transform a nation if you can ensure that the governing establishment maintains strict control of a particular idea and its related policies, at the same time as it ensures all opposition to the idea and its policies, is silenced. This is done by enforcing social stigmas upon any expressed disagreement; by legally punishing any breach of the boundary; and by using the courts to prevent people organising to the contrary.
This can, and does, happen. It can happen even though the majority of the country agrees with the silenced viewpoint.
It's what we see happening here.
Plaid Cymru, much of Labour, the SNP, and most of the rest, support open borders and the mass immigration and asylum flows which come with it.
They may do this for ideological reasons. For example, they may want to deliberately transform the country for their own political reasons; or they may hold to these notions because they have been morally confused with 80 years of post-war propaganda telling them that it is "fascist" to believe in nations and borders.
For others, they may go along with it just because they don't want to be bothered with the headache and hassle of arguing against the ruling orthodoxy and its power, and often because they don't have the ability to do so even if they wanted.
Whatever may be their reason, many such people detect in Mr Martin's question – as mild as it was, and as inoffensive as it was – a threat to the ruling orthodoxy upon which they depend and which many of them consider it their responsibility to uphold.
Hence the over-reaction of the Presiding Officers.
Hence their disproportionate emotional and physical reaction; a response far stronger than what the matter objectively warranted.
However, this is all good!
Mr Martin and Reform are forcing the immigration discussion into the mainstream at the same time as they reveal and expose the agents of the status quo and their hollow "arguments".
WHAT IS "RACIST", ANYWAY?
On the 11th November, 3 members of Reform held a short press conference outside the Senedd. The leader of Reform in Wales was asked if her party was "a racist party"?
How to respond? Of course, you can and should say "No".
But really, one can only answer that, in a meaningful way, if one has a working definition of the words "racism" and "racist". Otherwise, you're just talking at cross-purposes with each other, and allowing the opposition to set the definition, which you end up having to accept or deny.
Here's our working definition of "racism":
Racism is intentional hatred or hurtfulness directed against a person or group because of that person's or group's race.
That is, there has to be intent, along with hate and/or hurtfulness – this is often shortened as "malice" – and it has to be because of the person's race.
If the expression is not intentional, or if there is no hate, or hurt, or if it is for another reason other than the person's race (their behaviour, for example), then it is not racist.
For example, talking about a race, or drawing attention to racial characteristics or stereotypes, or even joking about a person's race, or criticising different races, or saying you don't want to get out-numbered by different races, is not necessarily "racist". It would need to include, as we say, malice because of race.
It might be "racial". It might be a racial discussion – a discussion involving race – but it is not necessarily racist – because that would require intentional hatred or hurtfulness directed at a person or group because of their race.
Now, of course, what is considered "hateful" and what is considered to be "hurtful" might depend on further definitions, and people will often disagree around those definitions.
Often, in law, these definitions come down to the legal concept of what "a reasonable person" would define as hate or hurt.
That being said, by our definition, nothing that Mr Martin said could fall into our definition of "racism" or "being racist" by any stretch of "the reasonable person's" mind.
Did Mr Martin's question pertain to race? Yes, it did. But so what? Race is a political matter. It is, or should be normal, for politicians to comment upon race, and (if you haven't noticed) they do it all the time anyway – albeit rarely from the perspective of what Mr Martin referred to as the "white British" (unless it is to criticise).
If asked by the media again, "Are you a racist party?" then a suitable response could be: "Our party neither harbours nor expresses any malice towards any person or group because of their race."
WHAT WAS PLAID CYMRU's RESPONSE?
Unfortunately, the response of Plaid Cymru, was typically unhelpful. See for example its tweet at 2.50pm on 11 November which condemned Reform for "blatant racism" and "hatred", at x.com/Plaid_Cymru/status/2120529490040238533
Of course, they did not point out any "racism". They could not show any "hatred". Therefore, we have to conclude that their definition of "racism" and "hatred" is simply "speaking about racial matters" – which, as we say above, is not "racism" or anything close to it.
They just throw these words out because they're angry at any pushback against their open border agenda and they want to silence it with their magic words!
POLITICS is ALL ABOUT the POPULATION
The irony here is that politics is all about the people, and the people is all about the population. The makeup of the population is an absolutely central matter in all politics.
If the population is changing, then the people will be changing and the politics will be changing.
Anyone who is "doing politics" needs to understand the centrality of population politics because what happens with the population determines the politics at the constituency level and the national level.
For example, what is the size of the population? Who does it consist of? What are its birth patterns: who is growing in size, who is declining; what class of people are growing or declining; what are the sizes of the age groups; what are the religious affiliations of the population; what is its ethnic makeup; how is the ethnic makeup changing?
As the population changes, so the people change, and the politics of the constituency, or the nation, changes.
If you are not doing population politics, then you are not doing politics, because the population is the basis of all politics.
Doing politics properly requires us to be free to speak about the population, develop policies upon it, and vote appropriately. To deny us that ability is to do politics wrongly.
It's good to see that Reform UK is doing politics properly, much to the irrational fear of their opposition in the Senedd!
Below: For all its hype, the Senedd struggles for democratic legitimacy. It took 27 years, and 7 elections, for the turnout to rise slightly above 50% of the electorate.
For more articles on immigration see our Territorial Sovereignty: Article Index
Please see our book Protect our Country: Policies to Stop Mass Immigration available on Amazon.
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