Three versions of the right fight for the White Cliffs

Three versions of the right fight for the White Cliffs

Local by-elections do not usually require three competing versions of the political right, an endorsement from John Cleese and a debate about whether counties should still be written on envelopes. Guston, Kingsdown and St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe has managed all three.

Voters will elect a new member of Dover District Council on 27 August following the resignation of Conservative councillor Martin Bates for personal reasons. The ward stretches east from Dover across a large rural and coastal area, taking in Kingsdown, St Margaret’s and most of the White Cliffs.

It is, in other words, a near-perfect place for the Conservatives, Reform and Restore Britain to gather and argue over who offers the most authentic version of British patriotism.

Ordinarily, this should be a straightforward Conservative defence. The party won both seats in the ward at the last district election, although the Greens were not far behind. Labour finished further back, while the far-right Heritage Party came last.

Since then, the right has become considerably less tidy.

The Conservatives have selected David Hawkes, who previously represented Mill Hill on Dover District Council between 2021 and 2023. His earlier campaigns concentrated on dependable local concerns, including antisocial behaviour, a new play park and the need for a bench near the Co-op. He also proposed a 20mph zone while removing most speed bumps.

Hawkes is standing as a 'Local Conservatives' candidate, a description the party regularly uses in council elections, particularly when some distance from national Conservative politics may be helpful. He will be hoping voters distinguish the local product from everything that has happened under the wider brand.

His online campaign has taken a little longer to get moving. A Facebook page for 'David Hawkes Tory' appeared today (Monday), nearly two weeks after nominations closed and after several of his rivals had already progressed to beach photographs, artificial cliffs and celebrity endorsements.

The Conservatives may be hoping that voters value a candidate who waited until the election was underway before deciding it required social media.

Reform has selected James Defriend, who is already one of two Kent county councillors for Dover Town. He led the poll there last year as Reform removed both sitting Conservatives and now chairs KCC’s Growth, Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee.

Defriend has travelled a considerable political distance in a short time. He stood as an independent for Dover District Council in 2023 before joining Reform and taking control of a county council division two years later. He is now attempting to add a district seat covering the villages east of Dover to his existing responsibilities in Dover Town.

His campaign material describes him as 'a real Do-er. Not a career politician,' which is one way to describe a sitting county councillor trying to become a district councillor at the same time.

Defriend has also adopted an unusual social media strategy. During the early campaign, he announced that he was “offline untill [sic] 10 August” and would not see anything posted there for several days. Any Dover emergencies were redirected to fellow Reform county councillor Albert Thorpe.

The announcement was accompanied by an apparently AI-generated coastal scene featuring enormous chalk cliffs, a lighthouse and several obliging seagulls. Defriend’s wider social media output has shown a considerable enthusiasm for synthetic political artwork, making him the first candidate in the contest to create his own version of the local landscape.

His previous county council campaign also featured a brief encounter with electoral law. Following the serious fire at Hammond House in Dover, Defriend proposed using campaign funds to help displaced residents. However well-intentioned the idea, election money cannot simply be redirected to charitable causes, prompting a rapid apology.

Reform will see the ward as precisely the kind of traditionally Conservative territory it should now be winning. Unfortunately for the party, it is not the only insurgent force on the ballot.

Restore Britain is contesting an election in Kent for the first time. Founded by Rupert Lowe following his increasingly bitter departure from Reform, the party has selected Jez Hermer, a retired Royal Marines major, MBE and member of Ringwould with Kingsdown Parish Council.

The choice was coordinated by former UKIP leader Henry Bolton, now Restore’s national security spokesman and branch organiser for Dover and Deal. Bolton says the party began with a longlist of 12 potential candidates before settling on Hermer.

Hermer grew up in the Dover area, attended Dover Grammar School for Boys and later became operations director at the Monkey World primate rescue centre in Dorset. More recently, he has campaigned against a proposed development of 70 homes in Kingsdown and accused Dover District Council of conducting a “cold war of attrition against Kingsdown beach.”

His campaign literature promises to put the villages first, protect the countryside, tackle speeding, support local businesses and oppose waste and bureaucracy. All fairly conventional territory for a district council candidate.

His wider politics are less restrained. Hermer has declared himself fully behind Restore’s immigration policy, even if it costs him business, while his social media activity has included calls to defund the BBC, warnings about immigration and the ECHR, and sharing a video claiming that schools are teaching children to hate white people.

He has also secured the endorsement of Monty Python star and increasingly committed online culture warrior John Cleese, who has spent recent months promoting Restore and declaring his trust in Lowe.

The first major campaign delivery round brought its own drama. Hermer reported receiving plenty of positive responses alongside a few “hard line antis” who became “awfully agitated.” One Green supporter apparently ripped up a Restore leaflet before dropping it in the street.

“How very environmental,” Hermer observed, before confirming that his campaign team had picked it up.

Restore’s first Kent election therefore places a decorated former Royal Marine, backed by John Cleese, against Reform and the Conservatives in a ward containing the White Cliffs. Sometimes political symbolism requires very little assistance.

Bolton says Restore’s target is the electorate rather than the other parties. Whatever the intention, its arrival further divides the right and potentially creates an opportunity for everybody else.

The Green candidate is Dr Ingrid Dodd, a retired GP who has lived and worked in the ward for many years. Her campaign is focused on protecting the countryside from overdevelopment, building affordable homes alongside the necessary amenities and improving seawater quality, an issue of particular interest because Dodd is a sea swimmer.

She also has a history of direct action. During protests against the Iraq War in 2003, Dodd helped organise three cars driving towards Dover docks at five miles an hour. She later said the action brought the area to a halt and was about “lies and spin” rather than party politics.

23 years later, party politics has caught up with her. The Greens have reason to take the ward seriously after finishing relatively close to the Conservatives last time. If three right-wing candidates divide the vote efficiently enough, Dodd has a plausible route into contention.

The party has also completed the now-obligatory campaign photograph on Kingsdown beach, where candidates and supporters assemble on the shingle to demonstrate that they are local and willing to stand near the sea.

Labour has selected Steve Wisbey, who says he has lived in the area for nearly 60 years, with three generations of his family raised across St Margaret’s, Guston and Martin.

Wisbey sits on the East Kent Economic Development Group and serves as secretary of St Margaret’s Football Club. His initial pitch is overwhelmingly local: he knows “every nook and cranny,” cares about the community’s future and can usually be found walking his dog on the cliffs and around the villages.

Labour already controls Dover District Council, so the result will not threaten the administration. Winning a traditionally Conservative rural ward would be a substantial bonus, but the more immediate political interest lies in which part of the right emerges strongest.

Wisbey has also fulfilled the requirement to be photographed on the beach. Unlike Restore and the Greens, he went alone, producing a slightly soft-focus selfie in which the cliffs behind him emerge with considerably greater clarity than the candidate.

The final name on the ballot is independent Graham Wanstall, a longstanding Dover Town councillor and regular presence at local elections. He stood for Kent County Council in 2021 and came second in Maxton and Elms Vale at the last district election, but has yet to break through above town council level.

His latest campaign has identified several threats to traditional British life. These include Royal Mail saying counties are no longer necessary in addresses.

“We have had counties for over 800 yrs,” Wanstall wrote on Facebook. “I always use the county. I hope others also do. Lets not let another piece of our British way of life go unnoticed!!”

He has also objected to candidates knocking on doors in rural villages on Sundays, warning that local people “do not appreciate being disturbed.” Leaflets might be acceptable after 11am, he suggested, but door-knocking should respect tradition and convention.

Wanstall conceded that he might be “to [sic] out of date”, although he cited 40 years of election experience in support of his position. Candidates are welcome to compete for the future of Dover District Council, but preferably not during the traditional day of rest.

His wider interests are not restricted by geography. Among the petitions shared by Wanstall are one opposing what its organisers call a “woke feminist takeover” of the United Nations and another demanding improved drainage, lighting and tree maintenance on the A413.

The A413 is in Buckinghamshire, but unsafe highways apparently require independent representation wherever it can be found.

Wanstall’s public career has previously taken him from local politics to the national press regulator. In 2015, he appeared near Dover’s Victory over Japan Day ceremony wearing a dressing gown. The Dover Express photographed him and reported that his appearance had shocked people attending the event, prompting a complaint to IPSO.

Wanstall claimed he had recently undergone a serious operation that left him unable to wear normal clothes. He said he had not known the ceremony was taking place and was simply visiting the town centre on other business.

Last year, Wanstall took to GB News with a complaint that Muslim doctors had forced him from a chapel at Kent and Canterbury Hospital. He said the men asked him to move during communal prayers and eventually placed a chair for him in a corner, leaving him feeling “belittled and humiliated.”

The hospital trust’s account was somewhat less dramatic. It said the room was a multi-faith facility open to staff, patients and visitors, and used by Muslims for communal prayer on Fridays. Wanstall responded by calling for them to be provided with a separate room.

He is standing without a party label and has urged residents to vote for any of the six candidates, while reminding them that he is “the lone independent.” Whether voters are primarily concerned about development, council services or the gradual disappearance of counties from envelopes remains to be seen.

The winner will not have long to settle in. Dover returns to the polls in less than a year, for shadow unitary authority elections for the councils that will replace districts under the government's local government reorganisation plans.

This means six candidates are fighting over a seat on a council approaching the end of its existence. The result will not change who runs Dover and may ultimately tell us little about how the villages themselves will be governed.

It will, however, show whether the Conservatives can still hold one of their better wards, whether Reform can continue replacing them and whether Restore Britain’s arrival merely splits the same vote into smaller pieces.

There are less conspicuous places to stage that argument, but few come with their own patriotic backdrop and compulsory beach photography.

Catch up

Kent’s fire authority has rejected plans to close four on-call stations, reduce cover at four more and remove overnight engines from Dartford and Thames-Side. The vote was 17-2, after which everyone involved began explaining that the victory was entirely theirs. We looked at what the decision protects, and the daytime cover and financial problems KFRS still has to solve.

Elsewhere, Steven spoke to Christine Rayner, who went from a smoke-filled Chatham News newsroom in the 1970s to editing six Kent titles and teaching journalism. Their conversation is about reporting before newsrooms were hollowed out, the discipline of a good interview and why being accused of bias by every political party can be a reasonable sign that you are doing the job properly.

Two big reads

1️⃣ In Meopham, the closure of a public toilet block became a £50,000 saga involving protests, a parish poll, two by-elections and five councillor resignations. The loos are now open again, having acquired new fittings, CCTV and a significance normally reserved for the windmill. The Independent has the full story.

2️⃣ The Financial Times examines an unlikely point of agreement in Kent: Greens and Reform councillors opposing plans for large solar developments on farmland. It is not, as anyone involved is keen to stress, a blossoming cross-party friendship. Read the FT’s account.

In brief

🚰 This week's water outages included Tonbridge, Lenham, Teynham, and Pluckley.

🏥 The NHS is set to open new mental health units in Ashford, Gillingham, and Margate.

🖼️ Kent County Council was the only authority to sell off artwork in the past year.

🏗️ Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council have begun work on a complex of 12 homes for temporary accommodation in the middle of a motorway junction on the edge of Medway.

🚛 Panattoni have submitted plans for a 1 million sqft industrial and logistics development in Lenham.

🛍️ Bluewater contributed £233m to the Kent economy in 2025.

👃 Villages south of Dartford are being plagued with a bad smell.

👷 Work to repair the Aylesford towpath, which has been closed since 2023, will not start until at least May 2027.

🚂 The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway had to suspend services due to an 'exceptional' fire risk.

🚒 One screen at the Carlton Cinema in Westgate has been damaged by a fire.

🍺 A pub application to install benches on a public square has ignited a debate over public and private spaces.

💷 If you're looking for an investment, the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells are up for sale.

🚠 The reopening of the Leas Lift in Folkestone has been delayed by a year.

🐘 Staff are facing redundancies at Howletts Wild Animal Park and Port Lympne Reserve.

🌳 Eight Kent country parks have retained Green Flag status.

⚽ Tonbridge Angels FC have had to apologise to their weekend rivals, Braintree Town, after fans let off a flare, caused damage, and used abusive and sexual language.

🚫 Meanwhile, Ebbsfleet United have been suspended from the National League over unpaid debts.

🌪️ A dust devil, usually only arising in deserts, was filmed near Lenham.

🐦 Rare curlews are continuing to thrive at Elmley Nature Reserve.

🌘 Kent will experience a 90% solar eclipse on Wednesday.

Council matters

Meetings this week:

• Maidstone: Overview & Scrutiny Committee will tonight (Monday) look again at the decision to close Maidstone Market after the decision was called in.
• Tonbridge & Malling: General Purposes Committee will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday to decide the warding arrangements for the new unitary authority set to replace it.
• Dover: Planning Committee will decide the fate of a surprisingly controversial sauna in Walmer on Thursday.
• Swale: Planning Committee will meet on Thursday to decide on 23 new homes in Teynham and a Faversham pub garden.

New planning applications:

• Ashford: Proposal to cover the Stour Centre car park with solar panels.
• Folkestone & Hythe: Screening opinion for a new hangar at Lydd Airport.
• Medway: Screening opinion for 1,300 home mixed-use development south of Halling.

Property of the week

This week’s property is Iden, a Grade II listed house near Egerton with origins dating back to around 1390, making it considerably older than almost everything else we feature here. It sits in just under 2.5 acres, with far-reaching countryside views, three garages, a wildflower meadow and enough fruit trees to keep you occupied for a while. Inside, there are exposed beams, leaded windows, two enormous open fireplaces, an Aga and enough careful updating to make everyday life rather easier than it was six centuries ago.

Check out this 4 bedroom detached house for sale on Rightmove

4 bedroom detached house for sale in Iden Lane, Egerton, Ashford, Kent, TN27 for £995,000. Marketed by Hobbs Parker Estate Agents, Ashford

Rightmove.co.uk

Events this week

🎨 12 - 16 Aug - The Blue Garden // Exhibition by Krishna Shanthi exploring Hindu iconography, queer visual culture and Sri Lankan history through collage, textiles and painting. Limbo, Margate. Free.

🎮 13 - 14 Aug - Crash Festival // Talks, panels and masterclasses on animation, games, comics and visual effects, with speakers from ILM, Framestore and Marvel. Malthouse Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets from £30.

🚂 15 - 16 Aug - WonderWorks x One:One Collection Open Weekend // Preview of Margate’s unfinished railway museum, including full-size locomotives, Churchill’s funeral carriage and the original Euston departure boards. WonderWorks, Margate. Tickets £25.

🚜 15 - 16 Aug - Biddenden Tractorfest // Around 300 tractors alongside steam engines, classic vehicles, machinery demonstrations, arena displays and traditional crafts. Holden Farm, Biddenden. Tickets £14.50.

Footnotes

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