{"id":1193741,"date":"2026-09-08T19:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T19:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1193741\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T19:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T19:36:21","slug":"reform-ms-celebrates-her-party-being-in-government-in-wales-and-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1193741\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform MS celebrates her party being \u2018in government\u2019 in Wales and Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/nation.cymru\/news\/reform-ms-celebrates-her-party-being-in-government-in-wales-and-scotland\/attachment\/gwyr-abertawe-ms-francesca-o-brien-with-reform-uk-scotland-politician-senga-beresford\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-348563 nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-348563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Gwyr-Abertawe-MS-Francesca-O-Brien-with-Reform-UK-Scotland-politician-Senga-Beresford.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\"  \/><\/a>G\u0175yr Abertawe MS Francesca O\u2019 Brien with Reform UK Scotland politician Senga Beresford \u2013 Image: Senga Beresford X<\/p>\n<p><strong>Emily Price\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Reform UK Member of the Senedd has been mocked after publishing a social media post celebrating her party being \u201cin government\u201d in Wales and Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>G\u0175yr Abertawe MS Francesca O\u2019Brien made the remarks after attending Reform UK\u2019s annual national conference in Birmingham at the weekend where she snapped photos with other party members and guests.<\/p>\n<p>The event was overshadowed by a financial scandal, internal resignations and aggressive disruptions, including two female hecklers being removed from the venue by security as members of the crowd grabbed at them.<\/p>\n<p>Video footage shoed that one woman was pulled by her hair while an elderly man grabbed her face and struck her on the head with a walking stick.<\/p>\n<p>Reform UK Scotland politician Senga Beresford published a photo to X, formerly Twitter, of herself with Ms O\u2019Brien in a post saying it was \u201cwonderful\u201d to meet Wales\u2019 newly elected Reform Senedd Members at the conference.<\/p>\n<p>Ms O\u2019Brien later shared the image to social media, captioning it: \u201cGreat to meet you Senga strong voices now in government in Scotland and Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear why Ms O\u2019Brien believes her party is currently in power in both Wales and Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>Social media users pointed out the error in the comments, but the Reform MS neither responded to the criticism nor amended her post to correct it.<\/p>\n<p>One social media user on Facebook asked: \u201cSince when are you in government?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another said: \u201cReform aren\u2019t in government though.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another wrote: \u201cReform are in government in neither country. Are you a bit thick?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following the May 2026 Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish National Party remained the largest party and formed the Scottish Government, led by First Minister John Swinney.<\/p>\n<p>Reform UK secured 17 seats at Holyrood, placing the party in a joint-second place tie with Scottish Labour as the largest opposition groups by seat count.<\/p>\n<p>In Wales, Ms O\u2019Brien\u2019s party found itself in a similar position, with Reform UK emerging as the second-largest party in the Senedd behind governing Plaid Cymru following the May election.<\/p>\n<p>Ms O\u2019Brien\u2019s claim that her party is in government in Wales came after she was mocked over another conference social media post in which she described GB News as a \u201cfresh of breath air\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The G\u0175yr Abertawe MS wrote: \u201cGreat to join the GB News reception last night and catch up with Nana Akua GB News.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor many years, mainstream media have been selective with their material.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGB news is a fresh of breath air.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One social media commentator on Facebook asked: \u201cA fresh of what???? Champagne at the reception was there?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another user on X said: \u201cDid you copy and paste this for all your platforms? Is that why it\u2019s wrong multiple times?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOr do you honestly think that\u2019s the right phrase? Nah, that\u2019s not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms O\u2019Brien defected to Nigel Farage\u2019s party in August 2025 after leaving her job as a Welsh Conservative staffer.<\/p>\n<p>The former Mumbles councillor had stood as a prospective Conservative MP for Gower in the 2019 general election.<\/p>\n<p>However, her campaign was significantly overshadowed when she was forced to apologise for a Facebook post in which she said people on benefits needed \u201cputting down\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She was defeated by the incumbent Labour MP, Tonia Antoniazzi.<\/p>\n<p>Following her defection to Reform UK last year, Ms O\u2019Brien was successfully elected as a Member of the Senedd for the new G\u0175yr Abertawe super constituency.<\/p>\n<p>Following her win, she was also appointed the Reform Senedd group\u2019s shadow minister for local government, housing and planning.<\/p>\n<p>                                Support our Nation today<\/p>\n<p>For the <strong>price of a cup of coffee<\/strong> a month you can help us create an<br \/>\n                                    independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, <strong>by<br \/>\n                                        the people of Wales.<\/strong>\n                                <\/p>\n<p>                                Get more trusted Welsh news<\/p>\n<p>Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.\n                                <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=nation.cymru\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark_en.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"G\u0175yr Abertawe MS Francesca O\u2019 Brien with Reform UK Scotland politician Senga Beresford \u2013 Image: Senga Beresford X&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1193742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":["post-1193741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotland","tag-britain","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117237109948619661","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1193742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}