How a Kent councillor briefly tried to save Clacton

How a Kent councillor briefly tried to save Clacton

For 24 hours last week, Kent county councillor Amelia Randall was on her way to Westminster. Then, almost as quickly as it began, it was over.

Randall, the county councillor for Birchington Rural, had decided not to stand in the Clacton by-election after all. Two other independent candidates had emerged, meaning her work there was apparently done.

It was a brief campaign, but an eventful one.

The Clacton by-election was triggered last Tuesday when Nigel Farage resigned as the constituency’s MP. Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens all declined to contest the resulting election, leaving the field open to an increasingly eclectic collection of candidates.

Count Binface was in. Laurence Fox was in. Piers Corbyn was in, and Randall was concerned.

“This is getting ridiculous,” she wrote on social media shortly after Farage’s resignation, criticising the “multimillion pound media circus” surrounding the contest.

“We don’t need more media-driven gladiators,” she concluded. “We need structural predictability and emotional stability.”

By the following day, Randall was considering joining them. Residents, she said, deserved “a real option” if they did not want Farage, rather than Count Binface or the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Clacton, she had concluded, was “very similar to Kent.”

“They need a representative that actually cares about their quality of life.”

Randall is no stranger to sudden political developments. She was elected to Kent County Council as a Reform councillor in May last year, before leaving the party four months later because she believed it was “losing its identity.”

She joined UKIP, becoming the party’s sole representative on the council and, for a time, one of its more visible activists in Kent. Last October, she led a tiny UKIP march through Rochester that was heavily outnumbered by counter-protesters. Six months after joining the party, she left UKIP too.

Randall then announced plans to launch a party of her own, Better Way Of, a name that raised more questions than it answered. Better Way Of has since become the Balanced Britain Party. Randall says the new party is “going through registration soon,” though it is yet to appear on the Electoral Commission’s register of political parties.

Clacton would have been its first great electoral test. Or possibly Randall would have stood as an independent. The campaign did not survive long enough for this to become entirely clear.

By Thursday, considering standing had become intending to stand.

“I bring real, efficient, long term solutions, and not short term wins and hype,” Randall declared. “Clacton-on-sea constituents deserve better than the clowns that have stepped forward.”

This was not, she later explained, a decision taken purely on impulse. Randall had approached a venue in Clacton about holding meet-and-greet events. She had designed a leaflet, looked at which community policies she should lead with and mapped out when she could physically be present in the constituency.

All of this was happening while she remained the elected county councillor for Birchington Rural. Since Kent’s local elections in May 2025, Randall has attended three of seven meetings she was expected to attend at Kent County Council.

Despite this demanding schedule, Westminster briefly beckoned.

Conservative county councillor Andrew Kennedy was among those watching events unfold. “Just when you thought things in Clacton-on-Sea could not get any more absurd,” he wrote, before describing his county council colleague as the “White Witch of Birchington.”

By Friday, Randall’s campaign was over.

“I am formally withdrawing my candidacy from the Clacton by-election,” she announced.

The circumstances which had prompted her campaign, she explained, had changed dramatically in the preceding 24 hours.

“When I announced I was intending to stand, I did so from Kent because I was frustrated to see Clacton voters trapped between a career politician and a circus of joke candidates,” she wrote. “I wanted to ensure people had a serious alternative.”

Fortunately, two had now arrived.

“Now that serious independent candidates like Ollie Granger and Luke Worley are locked into the race, my goal has been met.”

Randall withdrew to avoid “splitting the independent vote.” Granger, a broadcaster living in north Essex, had entered the contest on a platform focused on crime, jobs and the local economy.

Worley was also local. He was perhaps best known for appearances on Married at First Sight UK and Dating Naked, a programme whose central premise is reasonably well explained by its title.

“I’ve survived reality TV, so politics should be a walk in the park,” he told The Sun after announcing his candidacy.

For Randall, though, his arrival helped restore seriousness to the Clacton contest. Granger has since withdrawn too, endorsing Worley instead.

There would have been a few formalities before Randall could make her own move from social media to ballot paper. Parliamentary candidates must find ten registered electors in the constituency to subscribe their nomination and pay a £500 deposit, which is returned if they receive more than 5% of the vote.

Randall has not suggested either requirement played any role in her withdrawal.

The whole episode might have ended there. Instead, on Sunday, Randall published an essay titled The Clacton Vacuum: Why We Must Refuse to Turn Democracy into a Comedy Act.

“Using a sociology essay that I wrote as an example, I explain to you why we shouldn’t be letting characters stand for or win at elections,” she wrote while promoting it.

“It really irritates me to see such mockery,” Randall wrote in the article. “Standing in Parliament to represent your constituency should be considered one of the most important jobs you could ever have. Instead, people are stepping forward as ‘Characters’, coming up with foolish policies that will not help a single real family.”

Her argument was that repeatedly exposing voters to joke candidates risked normalising them.

“Visibility creates normalization,” she wrote. “Once you accept a character as a viable option in Essex, you lower the barrier to entry across the entire United Kingdom.”

It is a danger Randall evidently spotted just in time.

Her article also provides the fullest account yet of her aborted campaign. She insists she was not chasing media attention and never believed she was going to “magically beat Nigel Farage.”

“It was born out of pure principle,” she wrote.

Still, the parliamentary dream may not be entirely dead. “In all honesty, a little part of me still wants to stand,” Randall admitted, explaining that a woman in Clacton had contacted her to point out the lack of female candidates.

For now, though, she is staying out.

“I will focus solely on my local campaign rather than splitting my resources and time,” Randall said when withdrawing.

After a turbulent few days, Clacton has lost its prospective Kent-based candidate. Birchington Rural, meanwhile, has its county councillor back.

The next full meeting of Kent County Council is this Thursday. If Randall attends, she can take her attendance record to the dizzying highs of 50%.

Catch up

You may already have seen our trip to Sarre last week, after a Reform litter pick somehow produced a photograph with a reconstructed fence and a newly improved pavement. We went to see what was actually there and ended up with a much bigger story about AI, political imagery and whether we can still trust the photographs parties put in front of us.

The Reform litter pick that edited reality

A routine Facebook post becomes a story about AI in political imagery and whether photographs can still be trusted

Kent CurrentEd Jennings

We also published our latest interview, this time with Tunbridge Wells-based broadcaster and writer Iain Dale. He spoke to us about changing his mind on immigration, why failure is more interesting than success and the chapter about his sex life that he expects everyone to talk about. A candid conversation, and one worth catching up on if you missed it.

In brief

🚓 Former Maidstone MP Ann Widdecombe was found dead at her home on Thursday, with counterterrorism officers now taking over the investigation. Maidstone Borough Council have opened a Book of Condolence.

📍 The government is set to announce Kent's local government reorganisation plan this week, with word expected on Thursday.

🚧 Drivers of Kent rejoice, for Operation Brock is being enacted again tonight, with the barrier remaining in place on the M20 until 24 August.

🚘 Herne Bay and Sandwich MP Roger Gale has warned that queues at Dover for the new EU Entry/Exit System could be so bad that people will die.

🏥 Emergency care at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford 'requires improvement,' according to a new report from the Care Quality Commission.

🚒 London Fire Brigade are assisting with Kent fires, after height vehicles were taken out of service.

🔥 The National Trust has asked people to not set Knole Park on fire.

🚰 Southern Water has pledged £30m to improve Thanet's water system.

🗑️ Bin collections in Thanet continue to be rubbish.

🏭 Residents in Southfleet don't seem thrilled about a new AI data centre on their doorstep.

🗂️ 15 locations have been shortlisted for UK Town of Culture. None of the Kent bids are among them.

🎱 A Tunbridge Wells snooker club is trying to save itself by getting its building listed.

🌳 The first nature area alongside the Lower Thames Crossing has been completed.

🦫 Beavers, butterflies, and bees in Blean are set to benefit from over £1m in extra funding.

📰 KentOnline has been to visit Lydd.

🛍️ Big changes at Ashford Designer Outlet, with Denby set to close and Wrangler set to open.

🛒 The Grocer has pitted every supermarket in Folkestone against each other. Tesco won.

🖼️ The Bayeux Tapestry was snuck into Kent under cover of darkness last week. A projection on the Cliffs of Dover was a bit less subtle.

🚶 Kent County Council have launched WeRoam, a kind of Pokemon Go for walking around Kent but with points instead of adorable monsters. Let us know if you have a go, as the Current didn't further with the one-star rated app than it crashing on signup.

Council matters

Meetings this week:

• Sevenoaks: Council meets on Tuesday to debate the regeneration project east of the High Street.
• Tonbridge & Malling: Council will gather to debate a new leisure centre for Tonbridge, HMOs, and the constitution on Tuesday.
• Thanet: Planning Committee will supposedly decide on the plans for 150 homes on the former site of the Royal School for Deaf Children on Wednesday.
• Tunbridge Wells: Full Council meets on Wednesday to discuss a Tunbridge Wells parish council, net zero, and neighbourhood development plans.
• Kent: County Council will discuss mineral sites, water resilience, equality, solar developments, and SEND transport on Thursday.
• Medway: Council meets on Thursday to discuss fire station closures, budget amendments, councillor allowances, and the aforementioned changes to the mayoral system.
• Ashford: Council gathers on Thursday to discuss the, er, creation of a temporary car park exit.
• Canterbury: Council will meet, just like it seemingly is everywhere in the county, on Thursday to discuss water supply, genocide, and the constitution.
• Dover: Planning Committee will decide on a mixed use development in Deal on Thursday.
• Maidstone: Planning Committee is set to approve a solar farm in Marden.

New planning applications:

• Sevenoaks: 24 new homes in Kemsing.

Property of the week

This is a two-bedroom cottage in Hythe, perched high enough on the hillside to get views over St Leonard’s Church and a glimpse of the sea from the main bedroom, which is a decent reward for walking uphill. Inside, it has been renovated without sanding all the character out of it, with a big open-plan sitting and dining room, an open fireplace, and a separate kitchen at the back with a vaulted ceiling and French doors onto the courtyard. Upstairs are two double bedrooms and a bathroom with both a bath and walk-in shower, while outside there is a private courtyard and a small outbuilding. It is close enough to walk into the high street, canal or the seafront, and can be yours for £325,000.

Check out this 2 bedroom semi-detached house for sale on Rightmove

2 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in North Road Hythe, CT21 for £325,000. Marketed by Colebrook Sturrock, Hythe

Rightmove.co.uk

Events this week

🎭 13 - 18 Jul - Miss Saigon // Major revival of the epic musical arrives in Kent. Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets from £46.

🎸 Sat 18 Jul - The Flaming Lips + The Beta Band // Acclaimed band with legendary live shows. Dreamland, Margate. Tickets £58.50.

🎸 Sat 18 Jul - RIEKO // Margate-based artist and composer performs an immersive new live show. Quarterhouse, Folkestone. Tickets £11.50.

🏎️ 18 - 19 Jul - Streetcar Nationals // Grassroots drag racing with cars going head-to-head on the track. Manston Raceway Park. Tickets from £20.

Footnotes

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