A Reform UK wreath laid on Remembrance Sunday has been vandalised just hours after local residents paid their respects to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Ex-Royal Navy veteran Toby Rhodes-Matthews, who heads Reform’s Vale of Glamorgan & Bridgend branch, placed down a wreath at a war memorial in the Vale of Glamorgan on Remembrance Sunday.
The Vale of Glamorgan local was left devastated when he returned to the war memorial the following day to find Reform UK’s logo ripped out of the wreath.
The wreath, which included a heartfelt message from Mr Rhodes-Matthews, was left at the memorial – but Reform’s Welsh logo was found on the floor.
Mr Rhodes-Matthews told GB News: “As a veteran and a Vale resident this really cuts deeply.
“Remembrance is about coming together as a community to remember the sacrifices people made so we can have our democracy today.
“Clearly, whoever is responsible for this vandalism, has no respect for those sacrifices, or for our democracy.”
A Reform UK Wales spokesman added: “The violence and intimidation we’re seeing in our politics is disgraceful, and it’s a threat to our democracy.
Ex-Royal Navy veteran Toby Rhodes-Matthews, who heads Reform’s Vale of Glamorgan & Bridgend branch, placed down a wreath at a war memorial in the Vale of Glamorgan on Remembrance Sunday
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“Reform are clear that this sort of behaviour has no place in our politics, but many other parties have not been vocal enough in calling this out.
“We all have a duty to ensure that politics is a battle of ideas.”
The Vale of Glamorgan has become a key target seat for Reform UK ahead of the next General Election.
The traditional Labour-Tory swing seat now looks poised to fall into Nigel Farage’s hands, Election Maps UK’s Nowcast forecast has suggested.
Remembrance Sunday parades took place across the UK on November 9
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Reform UK is currently leading by 9.4 per cent with its total vote share standing at 29.5 per cent.
The Tory Party, which lost the seat in the 2024 General Election, is in second on 20.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, Labour would likely see its support halve to just 18.9 per cent of the vote.
The Vale of Glamorgan also witnessed the horrors of war firsthand.
Llyr Powell discussed the Caerphilly by-election campaign with GB News | GB NEWSHundreds of men from the local area died during both the First and Second World Wars, with German bombing raids targeting Barry’s docks and members of the Maritime Navy also paying the ultimate sacrifice.
The constituency was also home to a US military base and a Prisoner of War camp accommodating members of the Italian Armed Forces.
However, the latest incident in Wales comes just weeks after the Caerphilly by-election raised concerns about political intimidation.
Llyr Powell, who missed out on winning the once-safe Welsh Parliament seat by just 3,848 votes, told GB News anti-Reform activists had launched an “unbearable” campaign.
The campaign office, located on Caerphilly’s Cardiff Road, had an expletive message emblazoned across its shutters
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GETTYHe said: “I feared for whether it was my own safety, my family, my friends, or even activists that were just giving up their time to campaign for what they believe in. And I was spat on.
“I was attacked in the street outside my office. Security would actually walk me in the morning to get my morning breakfast just because they were concerned about my well-being.”
Following the by-election, vandals also wrote “f**k off home” on Reform UK’s by-election headquarters in the heart of Caerphilly.
However, it is not just in Wales where there have been examples of Reform UK being targeted.
The People’s Channel revealed just yesterday that a death threat had been graffitied on a wall opposite Camden Town tube station in London.
