The full story of Nigel Farage's visit to Welsh housing estate

As a black Land Rover carries Nigel Farage away from the Gurnos social club in Merthyr Tydfil, a boy of about 10 shouts from the crowd: "You done well in 'I’m a Celeb' Nigel." Leaning out of a passenger window, Farage replies with a thumb's up: “Thank you mate. Snakes aren’t much fun.”

It would be ridiculous to suggest any kind of Faragemania on the Gurnos estate, with only a few dozen people gathering outside the club on Monday for Reform UK's manifesto launch ahead of the general election. But for those who did turn up, the party's leader seemed to be the pull. One local teenager was starstruck after a glimpse of Mr Farage being driven away. "Mam, I just saw Nigel," he said in a breathless phone call.

Pebbledash falling away from an exterior marked with grime, the social club is not a glamorous venue for the launch of the manifesto — or, as Reform is calling it, a "contract" — but it was symbolic of ambitions that stretch beyond taking votes just from the Tories. Traditionally a Labour stronghold, Merthyr voted 56.4% for Brexit in 2016 despite the post-industrial town having benefited from a long list of EU-funded regeneration projects in the years prior. The Gurnos estate in particular is one of the most deprived areas in all of Wales. One critic, Valleys-raised Prof Brad Evans of Bath University, said the choice of location showed the "parasitic" Mr Farage's intention to "prey" on abandoned communities.

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When we arrive at the club on the afternoon of the launch, a stern-looking man collecting passes at the door is reluctant to chat. Asked if he's local, he replies tersely: "I’m Welsh, put it that way." Does he have a role in the party? "I’m not speaking. I’m nobody." The mild air of paranoia seems to extend to some of those gathered outside. One group of middle-aged and older supporters will not speak on camera due to fear of a “woke” backlash.

They also say they do not trust the media enough to be interviewed. We point out we have been invited here by Reform. One woman replies: “We can’t speak publicly because we’d be vilified as racists. Organisations, councils, they’re all woke.” Another woman says she fears she will be “cancelled” and lose her job for speaking her mind.

Passing a man draped in a Union Jack flag, we enter the club, where Mr Farage stands in front of a light blue backdrop bearing the words "Britain needs Reform" and delivers a speech to a few dozen seated audience members. The stockbroker's son and alumnus of fee-paying Dulwich College speaks of the “huge gap between our political class and the people” and slams the “Westminster and Oxbridge” thinking that he says dominates the Labour and the Conservative parties.

Much of Mr Farage's speech is devoted to attacking Labour's leadership in Wales, which he describes as leaving a legacy of higher council taxes, higher spending per capita and worse public services. “The figures in Wales are truly astonishing,” he says, blaming "lefty" politics for sliding education results and longer NHS waiting lists. There are boos from the crowd as he mentions Wales' "deeply unpopular" 20mph default limit. Labour, Mr Farage declares, is “not that different to the Conservatives, just more incompetent”.

He says we are facing “the immigration election” and asks: “How can you talk about a shortage of housing when you have to build one new dwelling every two minutes to cope with current levels of net migration?” An "overall freeze on net migration" is needed for "a few years", and voters should not trust the Conservatives on that issue given high migration numbers since previous Tory manifesto pledges, he adds.

Mr Farage says "the most innovative" policy in the manifesto is raising the income tax starting threshold to £20,000 a year. He argues this would be a good thing for pensioners with a supplementary income and a “massive incentive" for those on benefits to get back into work. Another major tax cut would free more than 1.2 million small and medium-sized businesses from corporation tax by lifting the profit threshold to £100,000.

How would Reform pay for its sweeping tax cuts? Mr Farage claims it can be done through measures like scrapping carbon net-zero targets and reducing the cost of government by 5%. He also claimed there has been independent analysis of costings from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). But after the manifesto launch, the IFS is far from complimentary about the "problematic" plans, which it says would cost nearly £90bn a year in tax cuts and £50bn a year in spending increases. "[Reform's] spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year," says the IFS.

After the speech we get a couple of minutes of one-on-one time with Mr Farage. We point out that before Brexit, Merthyr received a huge amount of EU funding (to name only a few of the schemes, the Town Centre Regeneration Project, Penydarren Tram-road Walking and Cycling Project, Neighbourhood Learning Centre, Merthyr Tydfil Business Centre and Merthyr Tydfil Valleys Information & Technology Centre), and that locals who voted Leave may now regret it as food prices have spiralled up and few benefits seem to have materialised. Mr Farage replies that he agrees with people who are disappointed with Brexit, and blames its failure on the Conservatives' leadership of the UK Government.

"I was the only one of the leading figures to say all Brexit does is give us the opportunity to run our own country, which means we could run it well or run it worse," he says. But why should people in Wales put their faith in his vision again after the disappointment of Brexit? "The opportunity is still there," he says. "We are self-governing. This election and the next one are the times to turn it round and get it right."

By what year will people see Brexit's benefits? Mr Farage responds that there have been benefits already. "The day we voted for Brexit, we were the world's seventh biggest exporter. We're now the fourth biggest, so there are good stories there. The real failure to deliver on Brexit is on regulation, particularly on small and medium-sized businesses, and on mass immigration on a scale we've never seen before."

He also defends Reform's pledge to scrap the UK's target of carbon net-zero by 2050. Asked what alternatives he would put in place to protect the environment — which had not been explained in his speech — he says the party is "very pro-nuclear". Will that be enough? "Oh lord yes, and we're seeing amazing improvements with firms like Rolls Royce." What about expert warnings that if net-zero isn't achieved, we will see mass displacement and a surge in climate refugees? "Not from this country we're not, and all the while China are building 80 brand new coal-fire power stations every year. Frankly it's crazy."

Most of those gathered outside the club are middle-aged or older, but there are a few exceptions, including friends Alex Mumford and Max Medway, both 18 and from Cardiff, who say they are thinking about voting for Reform. Max believes there is no point in "ruining the economy" by pursuing net-zero when the UK is "already one of the cleanest countries per person". And Alex says he wants to find out whether Mr Farage is really "the evil person everyone seems to make him out to be" or if he actually "provides hope to people when hope seems to be lost".

Charlie Rogers, 33, travelled from Swansea in the hope of getting a picture of Nigel Farage with a CD by his band, Deliberate Miscarriage. He describes the genre as Welsh death metal, which he says is “meant to be divisive” in a similar way to how Mr Farage splits opinion. Charlie used to do "the typical Welsh thing of just voting Labour because everyone does" but soon became "disaffected" by the choices of the Welsh Government and recently has been spoiling his ballot. On July 4 he will be voting for Reform. "We're paying way too much in tax and we're just not seeing good results for it," he says.

Robert Sparks, a 48-year-old from Llanishen, is a courier for a pharmaceutical company. He has never voted in a general election but will back Reform this time because he wants immigration down. He was particularly struck by Mr Farage's claims on the new housing needed to cope with net migration levels. "We shouldn't be in that [position]," says Robert. "We were once a powerful country. We're not anymore."

Wearing a red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap that has become synonymous with former US President Donald Trump, retired paramedic Terry Donegan tells us he became a Reform member a few hours earlier. The 59-year-old wants "unsustainable" immigration to be cut, which he believes would reduce pressure on public services. He acknowledges his hometown Merthyr Tydfil does not have a huge amount of immigration, but believes it is a big issue in other towns.

Following a change in boundaries, the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency is now Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare. The old seat had always voted Labour, with a majority of 10,606 at the 2019 election. However, Merthyr is in a Senedd electoral region where Mr Farage's former party UKIP won two seats in 2016. Welsh Labour's campaign chair Jessica Morden branded Reform a "band of chancers seeking to sow division", adding: "It's no wonder that all of Farage's party were turfed out of the Welsh Parliament at the last election."

Last Thursday a UK general election poll by YouGov put Reform UK at 19%, ahead of the Conservatives at 18%, while Labour were at 37%. A Welsh Conservatives spokesman said: "Labour have repeatedly shown their true colours on immigration, and a vote for Reform will allow Labour into Downing Street. The only way to see a tough approach on immigration is to vote for the Welsh Conservatives."

A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said: "For Nigel Farage, Wales is nothing but a prop to boost his own ego... Reform will blame all of Wales' ills on immigration, but what areas like Merthyr Tydfil need is investment and jobs, not Nigel Farage's divisive agenda."

In Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare, the candidates are Anthony Cole, of the Workers Party of Britain; Bob Davenport, Communist Party of Britain; David Griffin, Green; Amanda Jenner, Conservative; Gerald Jones, Labour; Jade Smith, Liberal Democrats; Gareth Thomas, Reform; Francis Whitefoot, Plaid Cymru; and Lorenzo de Gregori, Independent.