Everyone thinks they can win Cliftonville

Everyone thinks they can win Cliftonville

What should have been a straightforward county council by-election has instead become a crowded, faintly absurd fight in which every serious party thinks it has a shot.

On one level, this is simple enough. Voters in Cliftonville go back to the polls on 9 April after former Reform councillor Daniel Taylor was jailed for coercive behaviour towards his wife. On another, it has rapidly become one of those contests where a small crowd of political names has trekked down to the seafront, several parties are trying to squeeze each other out of relevance, and at least some of the candidates appear to treat party labels as more of a temporary lifestyle choice than a deep ideological commitment.

In other words, we have ourselves a proper by-election.

There is also a wider reason this one matters. Cliftonville is the first real electoral test of Reform’s grip on Kent County Council since the party took power last May. That alone would have made it interesting. The fact that it is defending the seat in circumstances like these has made it considerably more awkward.

Labour has decided subtlety is for other people. Its line is now being delivered with all the softness of a brick through a window: Only Labour can beat Reform here. East Thanet MP Polly Billington has said exactly that, while Dame Emily Thornberry came down to launch Joanne Bright’s campaign and warn that votes for anyone else risk vindicating Reform’s cuts, tax rises and chaotic administration at County Hall.

The underlying Labour argument is clear enough. It finished second here last time. It has a sitting Thanet councillor in Bright. It thinks Cliftonville can be turned into an early referendum on Reform’s opening months in charge, with an added local emphasis on violence against women and girls, community safety and service cuts. This is not a soft local campaign. It is a fairly blunt tactical squeeze operation dressed up in rosettes.

The Greens, naturally, would like everyone to stop saying that. They are treating Cliftonville as a race they can genuinely break through in, with Caroline Lucas turning up to back Rob Yates. There is a clear Gorton and Denton influence hanging over all this. Not because Cliftonville is the same sort of seat, but because that result has encouraged Greens everywhere to believe unusual things are possible in by-elections and that they do not necessarily have to make way politely for Labour whenever Reform is on the ballot.

That said, Cliftonville is not exactly a model of stable party identity. Yates is a sitting Thanet councillor who only joined the Greens last year after being elected as Labour. Reform, meanwhile, has responded to its first county by-election test by selecting Marc Rattigan, a Thanet councillor who joined the party on 24 February and was unveiled as its candidate on 7 March. Eleven days. There are supermarket yoghurts that have had a longer settling-in period.

Reform is understandably keen to talk instead about Rattigan being local, known in the area, a business owner and magistrate. Linden Kemkaran has been out backing him. The party’s pitch is that he is a recognisable figure who can defend a seat that Reform won comfortably less than a year ago.

Others may gently observe that if the party that runs Kent County Council had a deep and settled local bench, it might not have needed to recruit a former Conservative councillor and put him on the ballot almost immediately. Rattigan’s Facebook presence does not exactly scream unstoppable organic groundswell either. His page currently shows 23 likes and 2,600 followers, which may well have a perfectly boring Facebook explanation, but is still the kind of metric pairing that makes one raise an eyebrow.

The Conservatives, by contrast, are trying to make Charlie Leys the normal one. Their message is essentially, here is an actual local councillor. Roger Gale and Craig Mackinlay have both been out backing Leys, with the Tory case leaning heavily on the fact that he is local, experienced, and already has a record on Broadstairs Town Council and in Thanet. In a race full of party-switching, tactical megaphoning and general political theatre, that is not the worst lane to occupy.

And that, really, is what makes Cliftonville more interesting than the average one-seat local contest. Reform thinks it should hold because it won here last year and still has a strong vote in Thanet. Labour thinks it can turn second place into victory by squeezing the rest of the anti-Reform vote. The Greens think the anti-establishment mood and the current by-election weather might let them jump the queue. The Conservatives think the seat’s older, right-leaning profile gives them a route back if voters decide they would quite like someone less dramatic for a change.

All of them have at least some reason to believe it. Which is usually a sign that something weird may happen.

There is also the small matter of whatever is happening to the right of Reform, where things become less a coherent political strategy and more a series of increasingly frantic Facebook updates. Searchlight has reported on efforts by figures around Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain project and other fringe-right activists to insert themselves into the race. With nominations not closing until Wednesday, that remains something hovering over the contest rather than a settled fact. But the broader point is obvious enough. Reform is defending this seat at a moment when the wider right in Kent is not exactly displaying iron internal discipline.

That matters because a Restore-aligned or sympathetic candidacy, if one materialises, could split the vote in ways that make this far less comfortable for Kemkaran’s party than it ought to be. A seat that should have been a straightforward defence has instead become a four-way prestige scrap with possible bonus chaos.

Local voter interviews published by the Isle of Thanet News also suggest there is no single clean issue driving everything. Immigration and national frustration remain potent for Reform. But so are the older standbys of potholes, buses, public services, struggling shops and the state of the place. That leaves Cliftonville looking less like a simple ideological showdown and more like a race in which several overlapping kinds of dissatisfaction are seeking a place to land. Which is probably why so many parties think this is winnable.

Beneath the silliness, the endorsements, the tactical pleading and the speed-run defections, there is a serious question here. Reform won Kent in a landslide less than a year ago. Cliftonville is the first chance voters have had to pass judgment on that governing project in a live by-election. If Reform holds on 9 April, it can say the grip remains firm enough. If it loses, or even just scrapes home after all this effort, the story becomes rather less comfortable.

If nothing else, Cliftonville has already achieved one thing. It has taken a county council by-election and turned it into a small travelling circus. Which, in Kent at the moment, increasingly appears to be the normal way of doing politics.

Conservatives take Hextable as school site row drives by-election turnout

The Conservatives have won the Hextable by-election, taking a seat on Sevenoaks District Council that had been held by independent councillor Darren Kitchener until his death.

Lee Allen won with 600 votes, ahead of Reform's Daniel Kertsen on 406 and the Ashley Wassal for the Lib Dems on 367, in what turned into a proper three-way contest rather than the sort of sleepy local by-election most people only notice because a church hall is suddenly busy on a Thursday. Turnout was 47%, which is strikingly high by local elections standards.

The obvious reason is the former Hextable School site. Kent County Council wants to dispose of the former 38-acre school site in Egerton Avenue, and that appears to have given local voters something more motivating than the usual abstract promises about delivery, priorities and listening. Every candidate except Reform campaigned in some form on saving the site.

That matters because this was not an obvious Conservative seat. Hextable had been a strong patch for independents, and this by-election was triggered by the death of Darren Kitchener, who topped the poll when the ward last voted in 2023. So yes, this is a Conservative gain from an independent-held seat. But it is also a reminder that when a genuinely local issue cuts through, voters do still show up.

Allen was not at the election count because he was away on business, leaving Conservative campaign manager Michael Horwood to speak to the hordes of waiting press, which consisted solely of the Kent Current. Horwood said “all three parties had campaigned really hard” and argued the school site had been a major factor in dragging turnout upwards, noting that there were “a lot of local issues that have driven people out, particularly around the Hextable school site.”

Sevenoaks MP Laura Trott, who has been loudly opposing the sale, was quick to frame the result the same way, saying she looked forward to working with Allen to “protect the Hextable school site, our Green Belt land and the future of the Howard venue.”

What does it mean for Sevenoaks District Council overall? Somewhat less than it will mean to the people obsessively refreshing the ward results. The Conservatives were already the largest group without overall control, and that broader picture remains unchanged. But taking an independent-held seat in a high-turnout by-election is still a useful result for them, especially at a time when traditional parties are struggling nationally and in a contest where Reform and the Lib Dems were both close enough to make things awkward.

Council matters

Meetings this week:

• Tonbridge & Malling: Area 3 Planning Committee meets tonight (Monday) to decide on a mammoth application of 1,300 homes, a school, and commercial floorspace that sits between Hermitage Lane in Maidstone and East Malling.
• Medway: Cabinet meets on Tuesday to discuss a new adult social care strategy, crisis and resilience funding, a local heritage list, developer contributions, and, most excitingly, bus information screens.
• Swale: Planning Committee will meet on Tuesday to decide on the initial application for a significant urban extension south of Faversham.
• Medway: Planning Committee looks set to approve 500 homes and a supermarket next to the Strand in Gillingham and 270 homes in High Halstow on Wednesday.
• Tunbridge Wells: Planning Committee will decide on a host of developments on Wednesdays, including 186 homes in Pembury and 178 homes in Tunbridge Wells.
• Ashford: Cabinet gathers on Thursday to discuss converting the former Odeon into a cultural space and an expanded walking and cycling plan.

New planning applications:

• Kent: Proposed sand quarry between Addington and Leybourne Chase.
• Medway: Outline application for 450 homes, commercial space, open spaces, and infrastructure in Chattenden.

In brief

🚛 Refuse workers in Dartford could refuse to work after rejecting a pay offer.

🛫 A new consultation on airspace around Manston Airport is set to get underway next week, the latest stage is trying to reopen it as a freight hub.

🚴 A £4m bridge for cyclists could be built over the River Medway near Maidstone station.

🗳️ Tonbridge will gain a town council, with the first elections taking place next year.

💃 Dartford has entered the running to become UK Town of Culture, following previous launches by Folkestone, Deal, and Chatham.

🏰 Scotney Castle will undergo a major National Trust restoration project this year, which will see lost elements recreated, improve accessibility, add a new cafe, and increase car parking provision.

🚫 Ashford Borough Council is allegedly trying to kick out one of the few successful businesses at the Elwick Place development in an effort to make it more family friendly. The council issued a pissy response but didn't deny the claims.

🎛️ A new 750 capacity music venue has opened in Margate.

🍻 A new tenant is being sought for the Net Store in Whitstable Harbour.

👷 Work has begun to prepare the former Debenhams building in Folkestone, with a medical centre possibly moving in.

📵 Six Tunbridge Wells secondary schools have said they will ban new Year 7s from using mobile phones at school from September.

🦅 Hadlow College is now offering a falconry qualification.

🧙‍♀️ 'cene magazine has been digging into the history of Kent's witches.

🥌 Tunbridge Wells Curling Club has seen a surge in interest following the Winter Olympics.

🤯 KentLive needed two reporters to tell readers how to say 'Meopham.'

🇪🇺 Kent's Look Mum No Computer has unveiled his entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest:

Property of the week

This week’s property is a Grade II listed four-storey townhouse on Dymchurch Road, and it’s on the market for the first time in more than two decades, which usually suggests someone has actually been getting on with living in it. The layout gives you options, with four reception spaces, including a sitting room, dining room, morning room, and a bright summer room that opens onto the garden, plus a lower ground floor currently used as a cinema room or study that could also double as the third bedroom. The kitchen and utility have clearly had some serious attention, and outside, you get parking to the front, an inner courtyard, and a south-facing garden with planning permission already in place for a substantial garden room. And if you like your nice location claims to come with evidence, the Royal Military Canal is right opposite. It’s on for £695,000.

Check out this 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale on Rightmove

3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Dymchurch Road, Hythe, CT21 for £695,000. Marketed by Lawrence and Co, Hythe

Rightmove.co.uk

Events this week

🤼 Sat 14 Mar - UKPW //Action-packed wrestling entertainment. Lockmeadow, Maidstone. Tickets £12.50. Also at Chatham Historic Dockyard on 26 Sep.

Footnotes

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