The turmoil tearing apart Kent County Council’s (KCC) ruling Reform UK group has come as no surprise … to Reform’s own regional organiser.
Even before KCC Reform leader Linden Kemkaran’s astonishing potty-mouthed haranguing of her own group became public, criticisms were growing about her leadership style.
Now her future as council leader is under threat due to formal complaints against Kemkaran from at least five – and possibly up to eight – of her own councillors.
Evidence that elements within Reform UK itself were concerned about the quality and credibility of all the party’s councillors on Kent County Council surfaced some weeks earlier, during the party conference season.
When Reform UK delegates gathered for their annual conference in early September at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, the party’s South East organiser Adam Wordsworth, was discovered slamming the party’s Kent County Council members in pretty harsh terms.
This was because Wordsworth had been overheard by an undercover reporter working for the anti-racist and anti-neo-fascist group, Hope not Hate.
The regional organiser was heard castigating the Kent Reform councillors, claiming they were “all wankers”, constantly fighting each other rather than reforming the council.
Unbeknown to the undercover reporters, the cause of the regional organiser’s concern may have been a stream of complaints already landing on his desk from disgruntled Kent Reform councillors.
Zoom bust-up reveals Reform’s division
The following month, Wordsworth’s concerns became apparent when a recording of a Zoom meeting of the Kent Reform councillors was published by The Guardian.
This showed Kemkaran shouting and swearing at her group in what can fairly be described as an extraordinary and heated online outpouring.
It began peacefully enough with her spelling out the problems confronting the cash-strapped council and its Reform councillors, along with how crucial decisions would be taken.
It was, she said, her job to appoint a cabinet, then for her and the cabinet to “make the big decisions”.
But then she went on: “Now, because I’m not a dictator or autocrat, I like feedback and to discuss and hear what everybody thinks. Sometimes I will make a decision which might not be liked by everybody in the group, but I’m afraid you’re just going to have to ‘fucking suck it up’.”
Stressing that big savings had to be made in council spending to avoid putting up KCC’s council tax by the full 5% allowed, she warned: “We are going to live or die on that budget. If we don’t balance the books you can forget Reform winning the next election. It’s that crucial.”
The Reform boss went on to accuse other council leaders across Kent of displaying a “shocking” level of ignorance about the current plans to reform the whole of Kent’s local government, then went on to claim the leaders of other local councils did not like her because she was a woman.
And how does that make you feel … psychologically?
There may, of course, be other underlying reasons for her attitude. Lisa Lazard, Professor in Psychology at The Open University, writing about the row in the academically based online journal, The Conversation, explained: “This is an especially corrosive type of chairing that is associated with trying to wield power over others.
“It gives the appearance of open input while preserving hierarchy and dominance.
“The result is disillusionment, disengagement and conflict rather than genuine contribution.”
Professor Lazard, who studies power, interaction and online meeting dynamics, pointed out how, as the chair and councillors clashed, “the council meeting descended into shouting, repeated interruptions and eventually a councillor’s voice literally being cut off with the mute button.”
Obviously, Kemkaran’s outburst provoked some Reform councillors to respond in a way she disliked. In particular, she seemed more than a little annoyed at Councillor Paul Thomas, who repeatedly asked the chair about the party’s policy towards local government reorganisation.
At one point, Thomas told the Zoom meeting: “The question is … is that the right leader and the right cabinet?” The chair then muted his microphone to stop him speaking.
Thomas has subsequently been expelled from the party.
Culture of bullying
KCC’s deputy cabinet member for environment, Dean Burns (Ashford East) was able to admit: “Let’s face it, the situation at the moment regards our group is not great.
“I have worked my arse off in my own portfolio and I am still getting a rod up my backside all the time, and as Bob has already stated, there is a lot of backbiting going on and that tends to be coming from the top down.”
All of this outlandish behaviour has only added to accusations of a culture of bullying and abuse, which is reported to have resulted in up to eight official complaints being sent to Wordsworth, the regional organiser.
Last May, when Reform took control of KCC it won 57 of the council’s 81 seats. But by this autumn, due to suspensions and departures, Reform’s total has fallen to 50. Among these was Councillor Robert Ford, (Maidstone Rural West) who was suspended in October after multiple women on the council staff lodged complaints of misconduct against him. He reportedly refused to engage with the party’s investigation and has also been subsequently expelled.
Once the chair’s foul-mouthed behaviour was made public, Kemkaran did not apologise but instead doubled down.
Promptly, she launched her own investigation in an attempt to identify those who had passed the damning video to the media.
Describing that disclosure as “treachery” she informed her council group she had also passed on suspicions about who was responsible to the party’s national head office, then bluntly told her group: “The people who did this are cowards. They are weak. They are foolish.
“They are incapable of displaying true courage themselves, so they look to harm those who are. They are obsessed with personal gain at the expense of group success.
“They cannot cope with disappointment and personal inadequacies so they seek to bring down others to their level.”
Well, at least she doesn’t mince her words.
Mass suspensions of Reform councillors
Kemkaran concluded by berating her group, grimly warning: “The guilty parties will be expelled from the Reform party without delay. They will have no political future.”
She was clearly upset, and her retribution was swift. Within a day or so, she had identified four Reform councillors whom she suspected of the dastardly deed of exposing her online behaviour.
These were – Paul Thomas, (Maidstone South), Oliver Bradshaw (Maidstone Central), Bill Barrett (Ashford Rural South), and Maxine Fothergill (Sevenoaks Rural North East) – for allegedly bringing the party into disrepute. Each had the whip suspended pending an investigation.
It is easy to understand why Fothergill, Barrett and Thomas are all included on the Kemkaran charge sheet. Councillors Thomas and Fothergill immediately denied being behind the leak, while Barrett refused to comment “at this point” and has also since been expelled from the party along with Bradshaw.
Further accusations
In the case of Fothergill, earlier this year, Kent and Surrey Bylines disclosed how she had shared a social media posting which severely criticised Kemkaran’s abilities, or lack of them.
Originally posted by another LinkedIn subscriber known as Peter H, the article, which also appeared on Fothergill’s LinkedIn page, asserted that Kemkaren’s appointment should be “reconsidered because she is too inexperienced and ‘not up to the job’”.
This scathing assessment of the local Reform leader went on to call for Kemkaran to be replaced … “with someone like Maxine Fothergill”.
After the Kent and Surrey Bylines report appeared, the offending article disappeared from Fothergill’s LinkedIn page.
As explained above, Councillor Thomas had found himself muted during the shouty, sweary Zoom meeting, for repeatedly questioning the chair.
Then we come to Councillor Barrett, who had also had a much-publicised run-in with Kemkaran, not long after Reform took control of KCC.
Back in May this year, when Reform took over County Hall, Barrett was appointed to oversee Kent’s highways and transport. But the following month, Reform leader Nigel Farage turned up and was soon condemning the county council’s budget for transporting disabled children to and from school as “beyond belief”.
The next thing he knew, Barrett was out on his neck, although at first Kemkaran tried to make it look like he had left by “mutual consent”.
Not true, insisted Barrett, who told Politico: “It’s a complete lie. There was no mutual arrangement that we left. I walked into an office, basically to an ambush, where they basically spent 50 minutes saying how shit I was.”
Rumours of growing rebellion
Kemkaran’s response may have been influenced by rumours during the summer of a “rebellion” within the county’s Reform group, along with a breakaway group of between 12 and 15 members unhappy with the leadership style, together with feelings of remoteness from decision-making.
Once the foul-mouthed video went public, revealing the scale of discontent and division within the Kent group, Kemkaran attempted to get a vow of loyalty from her councillors, calling on them to support in writing her leadership.
This was based on advice from Reform UK’s party headquarters. She sent Reform councillors a note asking them to sign a supportive statement to “counter all the negativity”.
According to the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service, at least five of Kent’s Reform UK councillors, as yet unidentified, have lodged official complaints about her leadership style, while a further councillor, Brian Black, has been expelled alongside Thomas, Ford, Barrett and Bradshaw. The email, from Reform headquarters issued to each of the dismissed, cites a “a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour which the party will not tolerate”.
For Reform leader Farage, the Kent kerfuffle comes as a serious embarrassment as opponents warn that what has been unfolding at County Hall could be a grim foretaste of the chaos and divisions of a Reform government.
