The Reform group in the Welsh parliament has just had a nightmare 24 hours. On the first day that the Senedd returned after recess, Dan Thomas was forced to resign as leader, following his arrest on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour. An hour after this news broke, Sarah Cooper-Lesadd defected to Plaid Cymru, firing off a withering statement about Nigel Farage’s party. Four months after the Welsh elections, Reform are now leaderless and have lost the first of their 34 members. As one MS put it to me, ‘Sarah probably won’t be the last.’

Farage has desperately tried to project Reform as a new force that will not suffer the same problems as his previous parties. But this week’s headlines prompt memories of the last time a Farage-led party won a sizeable number of seats in a British parliament. Back in 2016, a month before Brexit, Ukip managed to take 7 of the 60 seats then available in the Welsh Assembly elections. That group quickly descended into farce and factionalism, with multiple leaders and mass departures, culminating in the subsequent........

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