00:00Nothing's really changed apart from my political allegiance.
00:04Unlikely words perhaps from a councillor joining a new party, this time Restore Britain.
00:10The child of Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Law, Restore Britain sits itself further right than Reform UK
00:17and last week took in a flurry of Kent's councillors.
00:20But if this is one of your representatives, what could it mean for you?
00:24I don't believe that things have actually changed. My political party has changed
00:30and I feel that I'm now with a party that actually will support me and listen to me
00:35and I will feel valued. But everything else is still business as usual.
00:41The Restore faction at KCC is made up of Maxine Fothergill, Robert Ford, Paul Thomas,
00:48Dean Burns, Isabella Kemp, Brian Black and Oliver Bradshaw.
00:51That puts them now as the second largest opposition group, overtaking the Tories.
00:56But what do the opposition think? Well, I went to ask them.
01:01They are a hard right party and there are things that Rupert Law has said particularly
01:07that are very close to being racist. And that is not the way that I believe our politics should go.
01:14We are better together, we are stronger together.
01:16I don't see them as a threat at all. The situation, as far as the Conservatives are concerned,
01:22it's up to us now to continue to build our membership.
01:27I'm not surprised because the leadership is very chaotic.
01:33The leader of the council doesn't listen to anybody.
01:36So if you get voted in and you want to represent your residents and you want to share their views,
01:43you want people to listen.
01:44The circus at Kent County Council goes on and on with backstabbing, squabbling, plotting, scheming.
01:50And this is the latest version. It's just, you know, it's disappointing for those people
01:56that voted in the May 2024 election thinking they were getting one thing.
02:00But now apparently they're getting something else.
02:02We asked if Reform UK wanted to speak to us, but they sent us this statement instead.
02:06Six of these councils were expelled from Reform for dishonesty and deceptive behaviour.
02:12Restore clearly have a very low bar for defections.
02:16Restore tows a risky line as another hard right party, Alliance UK,
02:21has been backed by convicted criminal and far right activist Tommy Robinson.
02:25And its leader said it would consider a merger in the future.
02:28Is this something Restore's councillors are happy to align themselves with?
02:32I support my local residents. To me, it's about the local issues and that's why I was voted in.
02:40What the party chooses to do or, you know, the way that things actually like pan out
02:46is really beyond my pay grade.
02:49I'm here to support my local residents and that's what matters to me.
02:53Megan Shaw, KMTV.
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