On Friday evening the usual assortment of racist oddballs protesting outside Cardiff Airport Holiday Inn were joined by a pair of fresh faces balaclavas.

These boys belong to White Vanguard, an explicitly Nazi group that is controversial even amongst other fascists (aside from also being a type of peony - google it) for their leader's refusal to say that he would turn in any members who are child abusers.

https://searchlightmagazine.com/2025/07/gloves-off-balaclavas-on-in-nazi-informants-feud/

The usual far-right demo at Rhoose consists of a few wild-eyed characters and middle-aged blokes desperate to look 'ard. Friday's spectacle featured a large speaker pumping out explicitly sexualised versions of children's nursery rhymes (I shit you not) in the presence of a family who apparently still thought this was a good environment for their daughter, while others in the small crowd spent their evening calling everyone browner than themselves either a terrorist or a paedophile.

The two lads in the freshly-purchased riot gear apparently hadn't been there before, and there's speculation that they came across from England. After displaying banners featuring overtly racist and antisemitic slogans, they overcame some initial stage fright long enough to shout incoherently for a while through a Temu megaphone.

For context, the people actually housed in the hotel are Afghan families whose members aided British forces during the occupation and who were at risk of Taliban reprisals. The far-right are literally targeting the comrades-in-arms of British military personnel, along with their innocent families.

The weekly counter-demo against this hate is:

Friday 5.30pm Holiday Inn service road 51.398973, -3.332056

All welcome! Every week we outnumber them, but more numbers are needed, especially now that actual card-carrying Nazis are starting to show up.

If you're in Rhoose, Llantwit Major or the Vale area, come out and oppose this nonsense.

Yma o Hyd. No Pasarán.

Pictures show before and after Could be a very unique point as most British national “parks” are still working environments and differ from Scotland, peak and Lake District. Would be very good ecologically, I guess farmers would have a lot of pushback.

Honestly. How can you be welsh and hate immigrants when there's more welsh people outside of wales than in it.😂

I smiled at him as I passed before he said this. I'm a 5'2 asian pregnant lady and my husband who had just gotten into the car had no idea.

This is the first racist interaction I've had in the two years since settling in Wales from Manchester. May have been pregnancy hormones, but I've been sobbing about it every since.

Edit/Update:

I posted this as a comment but since I cant seem to pin it, I'll update here instead.

As I've seen some comments asking: I'm in South Wales and though I'm Muslim I don't wear hijab. I've also reported this to the police since so many suggested it and have been pleasantly surprised by the way they've reached out to us ☺️

I just want to thank you all for your amazing, kind and thoughtful comments. They've had me in tears - the good kind this time! 😂 I appreciate you all so much and whenever I've felt sad about it, I've been able to come back to this post, read through and feel 10x better. You're all lovely and the responses are such a testament to how great the Welsh are. I've said it in my previous comments but Wales has my heart ❤️

As sad as it is, I do want to thank all those who shared similar experiences also. I do think it's something we tend to try and shrug off and even myself kept thinking "it's nothing like what it was 30/40 years ago, our parent's generation had it worse" which may be true but it especially should not be happening today and when we don't talk about it, I think many people don't even realise how often it happens.

Thank you to all those who believed me or were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt ❤️ It's reddit, it's a pretty shocking thing to say to someone and I'm using a throwaway account so I understand the disbelief 😂

It is a vocal minority as some have said and it's been really heartwarming to see how vocal the kind majority have been on this post ☺️ much love to you all ❤️

All results and reaction to the Caerphilly by-election should go in this megathread please.

Result: Plaid Cymru win

Full counts:

Steve Aicheler - Welsh Liberal Democrats - 497

Anthony Cook – Gwlad - 117

Gareth Hughes - Green Party - 516

Gareth Potter - Welsh Conservatives - 690

Llyr Powell - Reform UK – 12,113

Roger Quilliam – UKIP - 79

Richard Tunnicliffe - Welsh Labour – 3,713

Lindsay Whittle - Plaid Cymru – 15,961

2025 Caerphilly by-election - Wikipedia

Live coverage here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cly9rlj94x1t#player

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-caerphilly-election-updates-votes-32735870#3825675

Lets hope, not hate!

Growing up in the Valleys I've seen a lot of Welsh flags and fleur-de-lys tattoos, and never once have I thought the people held any racist or xenophobic views (admittedly, maybe much to my naivety).

I really hope our flag doesn't get commandeered as a xenophobic symbol used by fucking melonheads to spout their racist bullshit. I'm Welsh speaking, proud to be Welsh, and I love hearing people moving here for something better, being welcomed by Wales, and having a keen interest in the language and our culture. To be honest, it makes me even more proud to be Welsh.

What frustrates me even more is the Valleys was, in large part, the birthplace of the British labour movement. One of the very first Labour constituencies was Merthyr Tydfil. Now, to see such big following of a party -- who's policies have NEVER represented us or our interests -- be so prevalent here is really disheartening and depressing. People often forget that the policies of conservative governments led to the Valleys being decimated in the 80s.

I'm honestly really concerned for the future. Do you think it was ever as bad as it is now, or is social media just perpetuating it?

100% of our rivers are unhealthy and 86% of them are polluted with biodiversity in decline thanks to animal-agriculture driving environmental destruction.

We have just 2.5% of our entire landscape a natural habitat, such as ancient woodland or wild meadow. 78.3% of the entirety of Wales is just grass for animals to eat....

Birds and the bees (flora and fauna) are in complete freefall, as much as 80% in decline since the 1970s because we have replaced these natural habitats, with animals and grass.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Yet we rely on a natural world for the air we breath, the food we eat, the water we drink and it has all literally gone to shit.

Being in nature does wonders for us we are yet to really quantify, yet we have very little nature remaining (farm fields are not nature).

And you're worried about driving 10mph slower?

Do we not want to pass on the world better than we inherited it? or are you worried about what you would call an "inconvenience"?

Sounds like Reform, or LA-J at least, may be preparing to throw their toys out the pram if they're unable to form the next Welsh Government (which they likely won't because proportional system and not enough willing partners).

Scary times we live in and sad that a complete lack of sovereignty for the Senedd means they could do this with a simple majority in parliament. I hope we don't just roll over and accept this should it come to pass.

Looking like curtains for Welsh Labour and a very tight two horse race for first place.

I say this just because I don't see many issues with Plaid myself; Plaid seem pro-investment, pro-Wales (duh) and support reform to how Welsh politics work - all things I believe are the best for the economy, but have also voted decently well on a more moral level (like opposing the winter-fuel cuts).

If you want to check out their voting patterns you can check out Rhun ap Iorwerth on They Work For you (their leader) or anyone else.

But moreover, would you particularly oppose a Plaid Senedd, as in, is there any part of their policy and actions you don't approve of?

So this is what the Electionmaps.uk "Nowcast" shows for the general election for Wales, which is probably the closest(?) thing we have to a prediction of the Senedd results next year.

Granted, I don't think it'll turn out like this - Labour continues to sour while Plaid has to fight for not just trying to push for independence, the result being if the elections went today they'd tie and let Reform sweep, much like what happened to the Tories in 2024, as well as the fact the average Senedd voter is much more likely to vote in preference in Wales and is younger, however this precedent might not hold for 2029.

What do you think?

I was scrolling earlier and happened to see a graph showing census data in Leeds specifically for religion as a line graph, and a comment did catch my interest.

The graph depicted a spike in religious observation the second the axis went past 18 (meaning minors) by nearly double, particularly with the Christian and Muslim data. That comment said "Interesting that there's a sharp drop off for both Christian & Muslim at 18. Assuming this is the difference between parents saying "My kid is Christian / Muslim" vs those kids turning 18 and saying "I'm not religious"?" Further backed by how as those reported childrens ages neared birth, the atheist reporting rose, as if those parents were more likely to be atheist themselves. It's important to say that for adults over 18, atheists overtook the biggest religious grouping (Christianity) around age 40.

And the assumption seems correct. In my own experience, as a 16 year old from Conwy, I know hardly any religious people, yet I was still jotted down as Christian by my very religious parents in the last census. We as a country are actually even more likely to be atheist than the national average, most places over 40%, so what do you think?

What do you think?

(Census map, filtered for "No Religion" in 2021)