UK politics: New leader of Reform UK in Wales named after defeating rival by just two votes – as it happened

Helen Jenner will be party’s new head in Senedd after a narrow victory over Jason O’Connell Here are some more lines from Max Wilkinson ’s speech to the Lib Dem conference this morning. Wilkinson, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson, accused Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, of using “divisive language” that you would expect from the “authoritarian right”. After condemning the Tories and Reform UK for their anti-migration views, he said: And what’s the Labour response to this hard right agenda? Their home secretary has indulged in the sort of divisive language that we would usually expect from the authoritarian right …

W ell let me tell you home secretary – no matter how hard you chase, you’ll never catch up with [Nigel] Farage – that is a fool’s errand. He said that it was the duty of the Liberal Democrats to stand up to the Tories and Reform UK, and the “poison” they were spreading on migration. Repeatedly referring to Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick as a “plonker”, he said: [Jenrick] and his party are plonkers with dangerous ideas … and £72m to deliver them. And their allies in the Conservative party are weakly following them. He criticised the Conservatives and Reform UK for proposing to withdraw Britain from the European convention on human rights. He…