Reform UK pledges to control the presentation of historical narratives in Welsh museums

Reform UK’s manifesto for Wales vows that the far-right party will dictate how museums present history, should it win control of the Senedd.

This includes threatening to “review funding” to ensure “political neutrality”, along with ordering museums not to present “narrow and exclusionary narratives”.

Whilst the manifesto uses vague language, Reform politicians themselves have pointed to decolonisation efforts and portrayals of the UK’s controlling role in the Atlantic slave trade as examples of what they’re railing against.

The Museums Association, the professional membership organisation representing heritage professionals, said:

We are concerned that Reform UK’s Manifesto for Wales appears to suggest that, if elected, they would seek to control how museums interpret history.

It is vital that curatorial decisions are independent from government influence.

Instead, museums should encourage active public participation in decision-making, including through co-producing exhibitions with communities.

‘Clarity about cause and consequence’

Three pledges in Reform’s 2026 Welsh manifesto relate directly to museums. The first is a vow to “Restore evidence-led history”:

Publicly funded museums, heritage bodies and interpretation sites will present history chronologically and in context, with clarity about cause and consequence.

What on earth is “clarity about cause and consequence” meant to mean? Plenty of major museums have been guilty of obscuring the legacy of Britain’s colonialism, but somehow I doubt that Reform will be pushing for an unblinking look at the transatlantic slave trade.

Beyond that, the demand to “present history chronologically” is just… ridiculous. It’s a child’s idea of what a museum looks like. ‘History starts at cavemen and then ends at WW2’. ‘It goes through the Crusades, the Tudors and the Victorians in the middle’.

Why does Reform feel justified in telling trained professionals how to present history?

That was rhetorical; I know why… You know what – I’m going to go there. This is a Nazi policy; it is a propaganda tool used by Nazis.

Speaking to the National, leading historian Professor Tom Devine drew a direct parallel between Reform’s proposals and Hitler’s control over the presentation of German history in museums:

By coincidence, over the last few days, I have been reading about the state’s attempts to control art and museum displays in Germany during the 1930s in order to project Nazi propaganda. Some might argue that, superficially at least, there is some similarity between those dark days and the reported pledge of the Reform Party in Wales to interfere with the independence of museums in the highly sensitive matter of how history, and especially national history, is represented in them.

‘Narrow or exclusionary narratives’

Reform’s second pledge is to ensure that museums and other cultural institutions are “fit for the future”:

Wales’ museums and cultural institutions must preserve the past while engaging new audiences. Reform will support modernisation, wider access, and financial sustainability, ensuring that publicly funded institutions reflect the full breadth of Welsh history and culture rather than narrow or exclusionary narratives.

God, they almost had me there. Wider access and financial sustainability? They’re getting dangerously close to ‘inclusion’. Then we get to “rather than narrow or exclusionary narratives”. Gee, I wonder what they might mean by that.

Fortunately, a Reform spokesperson couldn’t help but say the quiet part out loud:

Too often some public spaces are presenting divisive views of history that are designed to make people feel guilty.

For example, the former Museums Wales chief’s ‘decolonisation strategy’ was one of the organisation’s top priorities.

We think there is much in British and Welsh history to be proud of – those things should be celebrated.

For context, Museums Wales’ decolonisation charter holds that:

decolonising the collection means giving clear and explicit information to audiences on the history of objects and how they were collected.

The museum also acknowledged that its collections are “rooted in colonialism”. This is a fact. That it makes people feel guilty about being from Britain is a logical consequence of the fact that we committed countless atrocities across a globe-spanning empire.

‘Review funding’

The final relevant pledge is a proposal to review the funding of government culture arms to make them “equitable to all parties”:

Reform will review funding for government-supported cultural bodies to ensure it is fair, transparent, and politically neutral. It’s common sense that taxpayer-funded organisations must serve the whole public and command confidence across communities and political traditions.

Given that Reform’s Lee Anderson has repeatedly called GB News the “only truly impartial” media outlet in the country, I dread to think what the party’s idea of “politically neutral” looks like. 

BBC Wales asked Welsh Reform leader Dan Thomas if his party would stop funding museums over their presentation of history. Thomas replied that:

I don’t think we’ll get to that stage.

We’ll have a chat with them and see.

The manifesto clearly states that Reform plans to review funding for government culture arms to ensure political neutrality. If that this isn’t a threat to remove funding to punish non-compliance, it’s difficult to see what else it could be.

The ‘whole picture’ isn’t pretty

Thomas also ranted to BBC Wales that some museums take a “very niche view” of Britain’s role in the slave trade. However, he said that the “whole picture” includes the point that the:

British empire was the first to abolish slavery, and that other countries have done it for, you know, millennia.

The first point is false. In a late-modern context, the First Republic of France (unsuccessfully) abolished slavery in 1794, and Haiti successfully banned slavery in 1804. Britain, by comparison, made the slave trade illegal in 1807.

However, slave-owning only became illegal across the full British Empire in around 1936, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last territories to join in abolition.

These are facts. They don’t care about Thomas’ feelings, to borrow a phrase from the far right.

History is not a statement of a series of events. It is a narrative, and narratives are subject to bias, subversion, and interpretation. Reform will never be able to eliminate this, but I doubt severely that they want to – rather, the far right does as the far right does, and seeks to bend historical narratives to its own end.

The Nazis tried to do the same thing. It sounds lazy and clichéd to point that out, but it too is a fact.