Yet more shenanigans at Kent Council, the Reform-led local authority which, to be fair, is sticking to its promise to demonstrate what things would look like were the party ever to take office at a national level.
Seven of its former councillors – six of whom were expelled from Nigel Farage’s party last year – have now signed up en masse for Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, an even more extreme outlet set up by the Great Yarmouth MP himself given the boot by Reform.
The seven councillors named in a graphic accompanying Lowe’s post include Maxine Fothergill, who Reform said had failed to disclose a “serious matter” during her vetting procedure, and Robert Ford, suspended for alleged complaints by female members which he claimed were related to an “erotic novel” he had penned.
Others are Paul Thomas, Brian Black and Oliver Bradshaw, expelled for showing “a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour which the party will not tolerate”, Dean Burns and Isabella Kemp. All five had fallen out with Reform Kent leader Linden Kemkaran following the leak of a video of a meeting in which she told members unhappy with a proposed rise in council tax to “fucking suck it up”.
Lowe, whose esoteric policies include allowing anyone to kill burglars, abolishing HR departments in private firms, banning the trans pride flag and giving parents “the right to take their children out of school for a limited number of days per year without getting fined”, has cheered his new recruits, saying: “I am delighted to announce that seven Kent County Councillors have today joined Restore Britain, and they will form an official Restore Britain group on the council.
“This is a very important day for our party. There will be many more to come.”
Meanwhile, a Reform UK source said: “Restore are welcome to our dregs. Let’s not forget that six of these councillors were expelled. If this is Restore’s bar for councillors then it must be very low indeed.” Reform watchers may note this is exactly the same language the Conservative employ every time one of their members make the switch to Farage’s turquoise Tories!
Meanwhile, 92 per cent of respondents to a JL Partners poll for GB News failed to correctly identify independent Lowe – actually up from the 86 per cent who didn’t have a clue who he was in a similar poll this time last year. Still, at least Ben Habib, the other Reform exile now running a hard-right party, Advance UK, is even less well known: a (surprisingly high) four per cent of respondents recognised him. The pair are currently engaged in an online row as to whose party should be submerged into the other’s.
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