Even Kent - a Tory heartland for over a century - cannot escape the rise of Reform UK
At the wheel of his royal blue Toyota, Paul Thomas glides past the suburbs and villages of Kent with the air of a man on a mission. Every few hundred yards, he gestures out of the window at new housing developments that have appeared in recent years.
“There’s not the infrastructure for all of this,” he says, nodding toward a row of beige newbuilds nestled into what was once farmland. “They’re springing up everywhere.”
Thomas – the Reform UK candidate for Maidstone South – intends to bring what he calls “common sense” back to Kent County Council when polls open next week.
On 1 May, most residents will get to have their say over who runs many of their local services. It’s a big job to tackle – the local authority looks after the largest population in the UK, with more than 1.6 million residents.
Kent County Council has been Tory-run for most of its existence. In 1997 the Conservatives won back their majority, which they have held on to since, although their authority was shaken in the 2013 election when Ukip became the second-largest party on the council, before losing all their seats four years later.
The last election was in 2021, when Boris Johnson was still prime minister. Back then, the Tories secured more than 70 per cent of the seats on the council. This year, every seat on the council is up for election – meaning residents will elect 81 councillors across 72 divisions.
Tory alarm bells are ringing in Kent, where the party holds 56 of the 81 seats. Polls have predicted Reform could take a large number of these seats.
If no single party gains more than half of the seats on the council, this is described as no overall control – and Tories and Reform could be forced to seek a coalition deal.
Despite this, there are also areas of strong support for Labour, such as the Medway towns, and for the Lib Dems.
‘This is Reform’s frontline county’
Maidstone is the largest town in Kent. Once home to thriving toffee and paper factories that are now replaced by small businesses and SMEs, the spirit of Thatcherism still hangs in the air.
Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory MP, represented Maidstone and Malling in Parliament from 1987 to 2010, before she defected to Reform and became their immigration spokesperson.
Like Widdecombe, Thomas is a former Conservative turned Reform candidate. He currently sits on a parish council and stood in Maidstone and Malling in the 2024 general election, coming within 5,000 votes of unseating Conservative MP Helen Grant.
Now, he’s standing in Maidstone South – one of a handful of Kent divisions where Reform believes it has a real shot.
“There are 81 seats up for grabs in this county – and I can tell you tonight – we are standing in absolutely every single one of them,” Nigel Farage said as he launched Reform’s Kent County council campaign on 31 March in Maidstone.
With a background in planning, Thomas insists he’s focused on the local issues: potholes, school places, bus services, better roads.
When the topic shifts to immigration, he steers it back to potholes – insisting that migration is for “Nigel and the national party” to handle.
Speaking in Maidstone, Farage said national politics “will have an influence”. “This is the frontline county – and if you go back a week, over 2,000 young men entered the port of Dover via dinghy in the English Channel,” he said.
While Farage takes care of the national issues, Thomas’s own policy proposals include abolishing Kent’s £7,000 EU office, axeing £130,000 earmarked for electric vehicle charging points and cutting £330,000 from a cycle-to-work scheme.
Also in his crosshairs are diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“Every other party has failed Kent, and it’s failed the local communities,” he says. “It’s getting divisive out there.”
Despite Thomas’s comments, Rosalind Binks, who has been a Tory councillor for Thanet since 2017, says divisive issues such as immigration are not being raised on the doorsteps.
“Immigration is not a major issue, it’s almost irrelevant,” she says. “People are worried about how much things are costing and what are we paying.”
Binks, who is stepping down at the election, believes roads, due to the connection between Dover and London will player a bigger role for voters.
But while she believes Kent has been “managed fairly well financially”, she understands why some are turning away from the Tories.
“I understand people who vote Reform. It’s the same here as across the country, people feel that things haven’t gone well.”
“Reform voters will be a real mix of people. A mix of Labour voters who are really annoyed, and some Conservative voters who are really annoyed,” she adds. “I think the Greens could do really well.”
‘Nigel Farage is a geezer’
In central Maidstone, Union Jack bunting flutters overhead, and Elizabethan façades loom over a high street lined with chain cafés and pound shops. Outside a bookmakers, Gordon Smith, 70, explains why he’s voting Reform this time.
“They’ve said they’ll stop the boats,” he says. “On immigration, they’re good – it’s a big thing for me. At least they can try. The others have had the chance and haven’t.”
Mike Williams, 80, a retired retail worker who moved from London to Maidstone in the 80s, said that “since Labour opened the floodgates, we’ve had mass immigration”.
“We’re closest to France, and they’re not only settling here – they’re staying here,” Williams added.
Younger voices in town are concerned with the health service and homelessness. But asked who they’ll vote for, they also said Reform.
“I think he’s a geezer,” says 19-year-old Joe Francis, when asked about Farage. His friend, Louis Crouch, also 19, nods: “He’s a bit of a dictator, but he says the good and the bad.”
The Green surge
Labour and the Liberal Democrats hold just six of Kent’s 81 county council seats. While many disillusioned liberal voters in Tory strongholds often drift over to the Lib Dems, in Maidstone, the Greens believe they’re on the rise.
Holding five seats on the county council, and more seats than Labour on the Borough Council, they are aiming to win four new county-level seats in Maidstone, and 15 across Kent.
“We’ve got that deep level of engagement,” says Stuart Jeffery, a Green Party councillor. “Issues people raise go from litter to immigration. People feel the town’s in decline, and they want to feel proud of it again.”
Jeffery challenges the anti-immigration rhetoric that has taken hold in the town. “Reform raises the small boats, despite it being a fraction of immigration. And these people that are asylum seekers, that have had homes bombed – we should be welcoming them,” he says.
Jim O’Mara, 66, agrees. A socialist from Ireland, he says the country “was left in a mess” by past governments, and he’s becoming tired of the scapegoating of immigrants.
“There’s a lot of this ‘bloody foreigner rhetoric’ around,” he says, sipping a coffee in the town centre. “I’m a ‘bloody foreigner’ myself. I think it’s just people often repeating what they’ve heard.”
“It’s led to a general sense of trepidation,” he added.
