Threats made against Francesca O’Brien, the Reform UK Member of the Senedd for Gŵyr Abertawe, are being dealt with by the police, she has said.
The threats, made on a social media platform, included threats to her home and her family’s business, she said on Wednesday. Members of the public had flagged them to her.
“I’ve received many colourful messages over the years but I draw the line when it’s against my family and the aggressive behaviour which has escalated rapidly,” she wrote on Facebook.
The person responsible is local, she said. “These threats are now in the capable hands of South Wales Police.”
“I can’t respond to all emails and private messages at this time but I do thank you for your support,” she added, thanking those who had raised “serious concerns over my safety”.
Helen Haines, Jo Cox and David Amess: the week politicians’ safety is back on the agenda
Her statement comes in a week when the safety of elected politicians is under scrutiny around the world. On Monday Helen Haines, an independent member of the Australian parliament, was hit by a 4×4 outside her constituency office in Wangaratta, Victoria, in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “wasn’t an accident”.
The 65-year-old former nurse has had both legs amputated, her husband said on Wednesday. A 43-year-old man has been charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official, and is in custody until February.
In the UK, two sitting MPs have been killed while meeting constituents in the past decade: Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, in June 2016, and Sir David Amess, the Conservative MP for Southend West, in October 2021. Both deaths led to reviews of the security given to MPs and to the way they hold surgeries.
Reform UK lost one of its own this year. Ann Widdecombe, its immigration and justice spokeswoman, was found dead at her home on Dartmoor on 9 July. She was 78.
The former Conservative minister had been the victim of a “targeted attack”, police said.
A 28-year-old man has been charged with her murder and is in custody awaiting a trial listed for June 2027.
Closer to home, in May Gareth Beer MS said his wife, Cllr Michelle Beer, had been “verbally abused in the street, chased, and called vile names” in Carmarthen.
From Mumbles councillor to Reform UK’s Senedd front bench
O’Brien was elected to the Senedd in May, when Reform UK took two of the six Gŵyr Abertawe seats with 21,641 votes. She was handed the housing, planning and local government brief in the party’s first Senedd shadow cabinet.
Before that she was the Mumbles councillor on Swansea Council, elected as a Conservative in 2022. She became Reform’s first councillor in Swansea after switching in August 2025.
The Senedd campaign turned personal in April, when Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart attacked her over a “pattern” of behaviour, citing social media posts from 2014. “Prove that I’m far right, prove I’m anti-Islamic,” she replied.
In May, after an NHS doctor and his sons were racially abused at Mumbles skate park, she condemned the abuse and invited him to work with her.
O’Brien has not said what the threats contained beyond that they were aimed at her home and family business. Her father, Gower councillor Richard Lewis, joined Reform UK this week.
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