- 13 hours ago
Catch up with all the latest politics news across the county with Meghan Shaw and Local Democracy Reporter Ollie Leader as they take to the cliffs of Cliftonville after following the local by-election all day
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00:21hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Kent politics show live here not only on
00:27kmtv but from cliftonville i'm megan shaw and i'm ollie leader the local democracy reporter for
00:34kmtv it was an extraordinary day here in cliftonville we saw the green party riding
00:41high in a very crucial local election let's hear from them now robert michael yates green party
00:48candidate 2068 there were eight spoiled papers a huge result in a fan it by-election touted as a
00:59referendum on reform uk's first year at kent county council with the green party cliftonville
01:06candidate rob yates securing 2068 votes that's a 301 vote lead on the right-wing populist party
01:17called after the previous reform uk councillor for the area was put behind bars for domestic abuse
01:24the by-election was hotly contested but political opponents say this was no sign of a deep local
01:32love for the greens this is at the moment this is a protest vote i mean the scary thing is
01:38the
01:38rising of the far left is obviously coming coming up but obviously as i said it's democracy and if
01:44that's what people want that's what people will get it was an unusual campaign that felt more
01:49parliamentary than local authority with senior figures like reform uk's robert jenrich hitting
01:59the doorstep but it was green party leader zach polanski that received the real rockstar reception
02:05on the eve of election day and will win in cliftonville as we elect rob yates as your next
02:14turning out hundreds at a grassroots venue to put last minute jitters at ease with a turnout of 37%
02:22and more than 5 000 votes cast this was not a small win hope is the green party's motto how
02:32high are
02:32those hopes for further electoral success in the county 11 years ago niger farge was walking down
02:38cliftonville high street and now that's a green cliftonville high street so 100 it's now greens
02:45versus reforming camp for labor this was a more bruising defeat they came forth in the contest
02:52concerns downplayed at the count i'm actually really thrilled that we now don't have a reform
03:00representative in cliftonville i think it's brilliant cliftonville have spoken they've had enough
03:06of chaos and neglect they've had enough of division and hate victory here will bring the number of green
03:13councillors at county hall to six that means they're still the fourth party in the chamber
03:20but symbolically this election will be a wake-up call for reform uk and the previous political
03:27establishment ollie leader in cliftonville
03:32and it was a long day as well wasn't it ollie we got up bright and early we had to
03:37make the journey
03:38all the way from medway to cliftonville and it was in a school so we got that early in the
03:43votes were already being verified after they'd been cast the night before it wasn't until half
03:4810 in the morning really when they started to be counted and the room went silent as they were being
03:53tallied up i mean it's always that interesting about by-election it's a lot of waiting around
03:58everyone waiting but you can already see a bit of doom and gloom on the faces of the reform uk
04:04politicians in there getting nervous they saw the green pile of ballots building up throughout the
04:12day as you heard in my piece it's about 301 vote margin between reform uk and the green party
04:19a significant win for the greens here but why do you think they actually managed to do it that's why
04:27i asked rob yates earlier on he's the new green councillor for the area here's his logic about all
04:33of it kcc has been run by reform for a year and they've done a terrible job residents aren't stupid
04:40they know and feel that something's wrong there and so that's been a big turnoff but secondly
04:47residents want empathy they want hope they want compassion in their politics rather than
04:54politics of division so i think the green party locally the community has rallied around and showed
05:01that actually we are a strong cohesive community and we want unity we want empathy we want compassion
05:07in our politics and that's what's really worked in cliftonville is showing we're better than this
05:13politics of division that other parties push is this really a case of deep felt love for the green
05:21party obviously there's the argument that this was a stop the reform party vote by any means necessary
05:27says that your party was lucky enough to be the ones that became the vehicle for this voting
05:33coalition as it were is this going to be reflective in the future i think that's uh that's one angle
05:40but
05:40it's not an accurate angle i think what we've shown locally is that residents can only believe in
05:45politics if you get results so what we've had in cliftonville is we've had a campaign where
05:52individuals are involved against um southern water for sewage dumping um like i was really happy and
06:00proud to have got a zebra crossing built after working two and a bit years with kent county council
06:04and things like that are things that can be believed in so we had local residents who every day they
06:10drive
06:11by hearts down zebra crossing when zach polanski came to margate i asked him to mention hearts down
06:16zebra crossing because this is something tangible a real action that i did without being a kent
06:21county councillor and now that i'm in kent county council i want to do more things and show more
06:24results because only by showing positive results can you get people to believe in that hope that
06:29the green party um us are like are out there talking about every day and and we can get those
06:36results
06:36so from my side um um now we see and this is the important part that greens are the antidote
06:46to reform
06:48we heard rob yate there and also it was quite a high turnout as well so over 5 000 votes
06:54cast and 37 percent of illegible voters turned up to exercise their right to democracy which is higher
07:01than usual normally the average is around 34 so what do you make of that ollie it's a bit of
07:06almost
07:07gordon and dent and fever don't worry meg it's not contagious it's basically we saw a big by-election
07:12up in manchester recently and it seems to have kind of catalyzed a lot of the political conversations
07:20playing out up and down the country between the old school of politics and the conservatives and
07:26labour and these new populist parties the reform uk and the green party and the voter base was
07:32energized people i came when i came down here to speak to people they all had an opinion about which
07:38way they would be voting it's something that mark hood says that he's a green group leader at kent
07:44county council he believes that this really represents a seismic shift in the national
07:49conversation yeah i'm absolutely delighted rob yates will fit into our team perfectly we're going to
07:55hit the ground running we're going to make sure that rob's got committees to sit on so we can continue
08:00to hold reform to account we believe from the very start that this could be kent's version of
08:04gorton and denton and it's proven to be exactly that we've seen that the labor vote has absolutely
08:09collapsed they had literature going out in the final week telling people that it was between labor
08:15and reform and you can see from the results today that has not been the case we've blown away the
08:21the labor party in this in this election and i think they they're pretty much finished
08:28why is this such a big deal you know it's not like you've overtaken the liberal democrats just yet
08:34no that's true but what what we we managed to get seats on committees uh by proportionality
08:40and because of the because of the hemorrhaging of of members from the reform group we had
08:46we had um gone down in the in the pecking order for those those seats on committees having one more
08:53member means that we can reclaim our our seats on committees like the flood risk and water management
08:59committee for the green party we want to be on that committee we want to be holding the water
09:03companies to account for the disaster that southern water are overseeing and southeast water affinity
09:10water we need to be on those committees because we need to hold hold those companies to account
09:14and hold them up to scrutiny as well so it's important it's important every member
09:22and we've heard a lot from the greens there but let's pivot and talk about reform uk as i'm sure
09:27they were probably confident they had that in the bag less than a year ago daniel taylor had 40 of
09:33the
09:33vote share what happened ollie well what happened daniel taylor was that he went to prison for coercive
09:40control spurring this by-election into action and it was a surprise i think to reform they had
09:47significant amounts of people in the room um this is what mark had to say about the loss
09:54ferris is quite shocking um especially with their um so their national policies of you know open
10:00borders legalizing drugs but obviously democracy is democracy and obviously that's what the people of
10:05flippinville want so obviously that's what they now now thought it's the the labor vote that's dropped
10:10here from from 1200 to 500 and that's the greens of just moffting mock ballot our our if you look
10:15at our
10:16vote we've dropped from 1900 to 1700s we obviously dropped a a slight bit but no i think you know
10:20this is at the moment this is a protest vote i mean the scary thing is the rising of the
10:25far left
10:25is obviously coming coming coming up but obviously i said it's democracy and if that's what people want
10:31that's what people will get my last question so i've seen this as a referendum to reform the uk's
10:38third year of kent to have the chancellor what do you think is said about that first year um i
10:44don't
10:44think it says it says anything and i think that sort of people be eating their words come the uh
10:47the
10:48may um elections nationally when you know reform literally take over the country um a bit in tomorrow
10:54and i'm afraid that's all we've got time for at this part but do stick around as we're staying in
11:02cliftonville and there's plenty more to come isn't there ollie i mean we're speaking to one of the biggest
11:07political experts in kennis simon finley he's the kent messenger kcc local democracy reporter he knows
11:14everything about this by-election we've also got some of the stars of the show robert jenner
11:20zapolansky we saw them on the campaign trail we're hearing a bit about that later on that's all we have
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14:43Hello and welcome back to a very special episode of the Kent Politics Show here on KNTV because
14:49of course we're live and it's the Cliftonville by-election. I'm Megan Shaw and I'm local
14:55democracy reporter Ollie Leder. It's been an extraordinary day in a very sunny Cliftonville
15:01but let's look back on that extraordinary moment. The Green Party stormed this election.
15:07This was the result as we saw it. Robert Michael Yates, Green Party candidate, 2068.
15:17There were eight spoiled papers and I do hereby declare that Robert Michael Yates is too near the
15:23world.
15:28Eleven years ago Nigel Farage was walking down Cliftonville High Street and now that's a green
15:32Cliftonville High Street. So 100% it's now Greens versus reform in Kent.
15:38At the moment this is a protest vote. I mean the scary thing is the rising of the far left
15:43is obviously coming up. But obviously as I said it's democracy and if that's what people want
15:49that's what people will get.
15:54Of course they're the moment the winner was announced and we've spoken a lot about the Greens.
15:59We've obviously heard from reform as well, the candidate, Mark. But we haven't really spoken
16:05about what it could mean for Kent and Kent County Council.
16:08I mean that's why we caught up with Simon Finley. He's the Kent local democracy reporter.
16:15He's a bit like me but his entire job is Kent County Council. He knows everything about how
16:21County Hall works and what this will mean for people here in Kent. Here's what he had to say.
16:28Every day in Kentish politics.
16:31Simon, you've been following this by-election throughout the campaign trails since obviously
16:36it came about there will be a by-election. Is the result what you expected?
16:41I think the result was probably what was becoming apparent in the final days of the campaign.
16:49When it started, surely the Labour Party, the Conservatives, the Reform and the Greens were
16:54all fairly confident of winning it. And even a week ago when I spoke to somebody in the Reform
16:58team, they said, yeah, the vote's holding up. We think we're going to take it okay.
17:03But in the last few days the Green Party have really got their act together. They've literally
17:09flooded the zone with their supporters and activists and got leaflets through the doors,
17:14letters through the doors, got posters in windows, got signs in people's gardens and really up there
17:22kind of their presence and their profile. And getting Zach Polanski to come along sort of two days
17:28before polling was probably a bit of a massive stroke. Although I have been told by some of the
17:34people who were in the campaign that it may have actually galvanised the Reform vote. But whatever way,
17:41301 vote majority out of a vote of 5,334 is a fairly significant, if not a huge margin. But
17:55it was
17:56pretty plain to the naked eye when you walked in through the door this morning that the demeanour
18:02of the Reform group wasn't really very good. The Conservatives, who thought they were in with a decent
18:08chance, they basically said that it was a referendum on Lyndon Kemp Caron's tenure as leader and Reform's
18:17leadership of Kent County Council and that they're not really doing a very good job. And that's the
18:24sort of the message that Reform probably wouldn't want to be going out. This was definitely a must-win.
18:29This is the first by-election that KCC has had since Reform came into power, and a landslide
18:36majority last year when they got 57 of the 81 seats. So from that point of view, it's what they
18:44call, let's see, optics. Not very good. And I mean, it wasn't even a year ago when Daniel Taylor kind
18:51of
18:51swept the ballot. He got 40% of the vote share to get his seat. And how have we ended
18:56up here? Well,
18:56it's almost reversed. Well, within about a month of Daniel Taylor winning the seat with 40% of the vote,
19:02you should say with the two to one. It was, you know, he was 20% head of the nearest
19:06ones,
19:08which was the Labour Party at the time. Daniel Taylor, within a month, had been arrested for
19:14various offences relating to his wife. And he was suspended from the party. He continued to sit as an
19:21independent. And obviously, the people of Cliftonville weren't being particularly well
19:25served by him. But a lot of the people I spoke to when I was in Cliftonville, and they were
19:30reformed voters, so I said, well, you know, it's not reformed's fault that Daniel Taylor was wrong.
19:35But, you know, that probably played into it to a certain extent. I mean, when you get by-elections
19:40like this, there's all sorts of different, you know, tiny margins that sort of can, you know,
19:45shift vote from one place to another. But I think the big indecisive thing about this particular
19:50result for the Green Party is that there was probably a big tactical vote. The Liberal Democrats
19:58did nothing in this campaign, and probably quite deliberately so, thinking, well, they'll see where
20:04the tactical vote should go to, and that will go to the Greens or to the Labour Party. The Labour
20:09Party
20:10vote pretty much collapsed in Cliftonville on Thursday. And it's just further proof, if proof were
20:17needed, that Sir Keir Starmer is probably going to take a real tonking in the May 7th elections.
20:25And we heard Simon there, we'll just touch on that, about Labour and what it might mean for Labour,
20:29because, of course, the MP for Thanna is Polly Binnington, a Labour MP. And, you know, Joanne Bright,
20:35the candidate for Labour here, positioned herself as the only opposition to defeat reform. Of course,
20:40it didn't happen, did it, Olly? Absolutely not. They came forth. This is, they had three other
20:46parties that beat them. They weren't the only opposition to reform in this town. And it's
20:52surprising because in Kent, they swept the general election back in 2024. From Stoke Folkestone to
20:58Thanet by way of Dover and the Medway towns, Labour won tons of seats. Even in 2023, Thanet District
21:06Council turned red in the local elections back then. You would have thought they would have done
21:12a tiny bit better. And we put that to Joanne Bright, the Labour candidate. She downplayed it.
21:19She said she's just happy that Reform UK were beaten back. Let's hear from her now.
21:24I'm actually really thrilled that we now don't have a reform representative in Cliftonville. I think
21:32it's brilliant. Cliftonville have spoken. They've had enough of chaos and neglect. They've had enough
21:37of division and hate. So I'm actually, I'm personally really, really thrilled that Rob Yates is now
21:46the councillor. Obviously, I'm disappointed that we didn't do better, but I'm really, really proud of
21:53our campaign. The big part of your trail was kind of positioning yourself as Labour, as kind of
21:58the main opposition reformer was saying, but, you know, we will be the opposition to reform,
22:04but obviously Green kind of won by a landslide. What's your reaction to that?
22:07They did. Yeah. So the tactical voting website, which is an independent tactical voting website,
22:14and Stop Reform UK told us that it was, it was Labour. So we were using that, that message
22:19because that's what we were told. Joanne Bright there, and as we were speaking about the future
22:25of Cliftonville and the future of Labour as well, but it's not just about looking forward because
22:30this has been a long time in the making, hasn't it, Ollie? I mean, you've been covering the campaign
22:34trails since the by-election was first announced. So tell us a bit about that. I mean, it's been a
22:39very odd campaign, more parliamentary than local authority. We've seen plenty of senior politicians
22:47on the campaign trail. Caroline Lucas, the former Green MP, Emily Thornberry, senior Labour backbencher,
22:55Reform UK's Robert Jennerick, rallying the troops of the Bosny Bay Clifftops. It's been a very
23:03interesting campaign, unlike any I've really seen covering by-elections in Kent. And when you got to
23:10speak to Robert Jennerick, he was trying to muster that reform energy. And I asked him about reforms,
23:16UK's track record at KCC. Was that a contributing factor in their loss here? Here's what he had to
23:23say about that track record. And of course, the big issue for everyone, council tax.
23:28We inherited a council with massive amounts of debt, huge problems, and it's beginning to put
23:34it into good shape. You look at council tax, which I know there's been a lot of attention to,
23:39actually, it's lower than the Conservatives managed to do in the last 10 years.
23:44But looking at leaflets from last year, cut your taxes, fairer council tax.
23:49Well, we are reducing taxes, and the taxes are less. You know, of course they're going up,
23:54but that's because there's immense pressure on councils at the moment, because of all the
23:57national services, like adult social care and children's services. Everyone knows what's going
24:02on in that respect. But they're going up less in reform areas than in Conservative or Labour areas.
24:08So it's very clear that if you want to pay less council tax, vote reform.
24:12That's not a cut though, is it?
24:14Well, it's going up less, and that's the most important thing.
24:19And of course, we can't talk about Robert Jenrick's appearance on the campaign trail without
24:24talking about Zach Polanski's appearance to support the Green Party, with just 24 hours notice.
24:29That's right, isn't it?
24:30It was a very surprising day. A last minute, 11th hour appearance from a Green leader who's
24:38rising high in the polls. It was a bit of a rock star entrance. He was at this tiny little
24:42music
24:43venue in the heart of Margate. Hundreds crammed into the room. It felt more like a party than a
24:49rally. There was beer flowing everywhere. Jokes doing it almost like a standup routine at times.
24:55It was electrifying in some ways. A very different kind of politics, only really mirrored by Nigel
25:01Farage. Here's a little taster of that flavour we saw on Wednesday night.
25:06It's a pleasure to welcome the leader of the Green Party and a great guy, Zach Polanski.
25:20We didn't win through feel-good vibes and feeling confident. Those bits are important,
25:26and I am confident, but I'm not complacent. Right now, if we don't turn up tomorrow,
25:32Nigel Farage and Reform will be celebrating in Cliftonville on Friday. But this is not a script that
25:40someone else has written. It's a script we can all write tonight, and more importantly,
25:45you can write tomorrow. And we'll win in Cliftonville as we elect Rob Yates as your next
26:07day. Three, two. And I'm afraid that's all we've got time for on today's special episode of the Kent
26:15Politics Show. We're sticking around in Cliftonville because Zach Polanski is set to do a speech in
26:19Margit. So we're hoping we get some clips of that too. But until then, stick around for Kent tonight.
26:24See you then.
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