Senedd politician Laura Anne Jones has defected from the Conservatives to Reform, Nigel Farage has announced.
Jones becomes the party’s first Member of the Senedd. Her defection was announced at the Royal Welsh Show.
She said she could no longer justify Conservative policies on the doorstep.
Her defection means the Conservatives are down to 14 politicians in the Welsh Parliament.
Recent polls have suggested Reform has a chance of being the largest party at next May’s Senedd election.
Speaking at the Royal Welsh Show, Jones said: “I’ve just suddenly felt that the Conservative Party was unrecognisable to me. It wasn’t the party that I joined over three decades ago.”
She said Reform “is listening to the people of Great Britain”.
Jones had been reselected for the new Senedd seat of Sir Fynwy Torfaen, but she faced a contest with Peter Fox for the top spot on the party list there.
She denied that she had joined Reform because she was worried about not getting re-elected.
“I had a fair chance of getting in,” she told a news conference.
Farage said Jones brings “experience. She knows how the place works, and that’s very important for us”.
Jones was first elected to the then-National Assembly in 2003, serving one term until 2007, before returning in 2020 after the death of Mohammad Asghar.
She was re-elected the following year, at the 2021 election, for South Wales East.