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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Will Hayward

I don’t care if Reform calls me a bad word on WhatsApp. But the story behind its gaffe is far more worrying

Nigel Farage at a Reform UK rally at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, 24 November 2025.
Nigel Farage at a Reform UK rally at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, 24 November 2025. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Last week saw one of the proudest moments of my journalism career. Leaked messages from a WhatsApp group containing several senior members of Reform UK in Wales seemed to suggest that the party’s director of communications called me a bad word in January this year. I won’t say the word, but it’s the bad one beginning with C.

Personally I don’t have any issue with being called that inside a private group. I would have considered it a stain on my professionalism if any political party’s comms chief had given me a glowing review. Mates of mine have actually suggested that it’s perhaps the most accurate thing to come out of Reform UK HQ. However, it is symbolic of behaviour from Reform in Wales that makes me far more concerned about what the party would be like in power, and which should worry voters both here in Cymru and in the wider UK. The first concern has to be its attitude to scrutiny.

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