A member of
Flintshire County Council between 1995 and 1997, Thomas was elected to Parliament at the
1997 general election. Before 1997, Clwyd West had been regarded as a
safe Conservative seat. His political interests include Wales, legal reform, social security and the environment. He was a member of the
Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, the Select Committee on Social Security and the
Joint Human Rights Committee. He unsuccessfully sought the nomination for
Clwyd West seat in the inaugural
Assembly elections losing out to
Alun Pugh. Following the
2001 general election he was appointed
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the
Secretary of State for Wales,
Paul Murphy, and in October 2002 moved with Murphy to the
Northern Ireland Office in the same capacity. He was a member of Labour's Parliamentary Campaign Team. At the
2005 general election, Thomas was narrowly defeated by the
Conservative Party candidate
David Jones. Thomas has returned to the legal profession, working as a barrister at Atlantic Chambers Liverpool. In 2013 he was chosen as the Labour Party's candidate for Clwyd West at the
2015 general election. However, he was again defeated by Jones, this time by 6,730 votes. He stood again for his old seat at the
2017 election, cutting Jones' majority to 3,437 votes, and achieving a swing of 5% in the process. ==Personal life==