Iain McIntosh

Powys, the largest county in Wales by area, has some of the poorest infrastructure in the country: limited public transport, poor broadband, and ageing road networks. These genuine grievances make rural mid-Wales fertile ground for anti-devolution arguments that the Senedd has failed to deliver for communities outside the south Wales urban corridor.

McIntosh exemplifies Reform UK's local-level strategy in Wales: using genuine infrastructure frustrations in rural communities to build a case that the Senedd is failing to deliver. As a councillor in Powys — where the distance from Cardiff Bay can feel as remote as the distance from Westminster — he is well-positioned to argue that devolution has merely replaced one distant government with another. His focus on tangible local issues (roads, broadband, services) rather than abstract constitutional arguments gives Reform's anti-Senedd messaging a concrete, relatable dimension. Four councillors from Powys joined Reform UK in March 2025, suggesting that McIntosh's approach of linking local service failures to broader devolution scepticism has traction in rural mid-Wales. This local-to-national pipeline — using council-level frustrations to build support for a Senedd-level anti-establishment message — is a key part of Reform's Welsh strategy.