A senior Reform politician says a no-confidence vote in the Senedd’s presiding officer is “not off the table”, after a party member was banned for claiming white people were being “replaced”.
Llŷr Powell, Reform’s chief whip in Cardiff Bay, said his colleague Joe Martin had the right to raise “legitimate concerns” that were being “infringed upon”.
Martin was told he would not be called to speak in the Welsh Parliament until he apologised for the remarks made on Tuesday, which Presiding Officer Huw Irranca-Davies called “unnecessarily provocative and deliberately offensive”.
Reform withdrew from most Senedd proceedings on Wednesday in response.
Powell, who as chief whip enforces party discipline in the Senedd’s Reform group, was asked on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast if his party would put forward a no confidence vote in Irranca-Davies.
He said: “I’m not going to say that we’re going to do that now, but what I would say is it’s not off the table right now because freedom of speech and the right of members to raise legitimate concerns should be the main priority.
“And for us, right now, we see that as being infringed upon.”
Powell denied Martin had made any connection to a far-right conspiracy theory that the white population was being deliberately replaced by the immigration of other ethnic groups.
“Joe was asking a legitimate question based on demographic changes,” Powell said.
“The idea that he was framing some far-right theory is false.
“He was talking about legitimate concerns that is out there for data for all to see.”
