Cliftonville is a suburb of Margate, whose population has within the last few decades become a favoured retreat for the retired. This is because its property prices were modest compared to other seaside locations such as Brighton, Eastbourne, or Bognor Regis. Cliftonville West has tended to encompass older homeowners, whereas Cliftonville East is more deprived and has a transient population.
Last May, Cliftonville West fell to the Reform party who swept away decades of Conservative party representation to win the county council division and control of Kent County Council.
Since then, it has been down-hill all the way for Reform. Having made promises to cut council tax by finding savings from its Department of Local Government Efficiency, or DOLGE, KCC are raising Council Tax by 3.99%.The KCC DOLGE head resigns over ‘lapse of judgement’ allegedly because no savings were made, and claims that Reform-run Kent council accused of fabricating £40m net zero savings have further muddied the waters.
Internal disputes such as the infamous ‘Suck it up’: leaked video exposes bitter infighting at KCC, and led to the banishing of 6 councillors and losing 9 councillors overall from an original total of 57.
Nationally, Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, has been dogged by claims of extreme anti-semitism, by a student at Dulwich college, and his colleague Richard Tice has been accused of not paying tax due. Tice has attempted to dismiss this latest issue as an “an administrative error”. Most people might conclude that the non-payment of £91,000 in tax due, is rather more than an administrative error.
Reform’s Daniel Taylor allegedly threatening to kill his wife
The Cliftonville West by-election was called because the sitting Councillor, Daniel Taylor, was jailed for 12 months for coercive behaviour towards his wife. In fact, the prosecution said Taylor had told his wife he would hunt her like prey and kill her, and that he would “put you in the boot and set fire to the car”.
Taylor won the seat for Reform and sat as an independent when his criminality became public knowledge. Normally, a county council by-election is a matter for local government cognoscenti rather than a national event, but this election had a life of its own. There are local elections in England and assembly/parliament elections in Wales and Scotland in May, and this by-election is being seen as barometer of what may happen.
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There is no doubt that Reform expected to win Cliftonville West because they had captured it quite easily last May. Cliftonville and Thanet are Brexit central, and in the past, UKIP, Reform’s previous Farage led coalition of the disaffected, had swept the board in Thanet during the District Council elections of 2015.
However in 2026, something happened and the Greens took the vote , specifically Rob Yates. What were the factors in this shock result?
Green’s shock win
The Greens do have a foothold in Thanet, but mainly in Ramsgate. There are 6 Green Councillors on Thanet District Council out of 56, and Cllr Yates, the winning candidate at Cliftonville West, was originally a Labour Cllr.
Thanet has a history of cllr defections and resignations, and in Thanet, defections, splits, and disagreements, are the stuff of politics there. Thanet is not alone, because it is increasingly hard to find suitable candidates for local govt elections, and many fall by the wayside in a four year term.
So why all the hullabaloo over a council seat in darkest Thanet? After all, it’s not in the same league as the throwing over of Orban and Fidesz, in Hungary. There, the ending of 16 years of increasingly dictatorial rule, may have profound consequences strategically for Europe, Russia and Ukraine.
No, Cliftonville is not that important, but it may be yet another rumbling of an increasingly dissatisfied left of centre bloc within the UK electorate. After the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election, it shows that Labour cannot rely on its increasingly shaky coalition of progressives to see it through.
24 months in from the general election, Keir Starmer’s approval rating is not good, but neither is Kemi Badenoch’s popularity and fame. Farage and Reform have been able to surf the discontent and pick up votes and support from both main political parties.
But, the Greens have also picked up support as polls see continued fragmentation in voting intentions. In some polls the Greens have reached 26%, or touching distance from Reform which had been polling over 30% for some months.
The Cliftonville poll was higher than in 2025, and this may have been a factor in why the Greens won. More people came out to vote, and there was a transfer of votes from Labour to the Greens and this may have got the Greens across the winning post. Reform did not take more votes from the Conservatives to offset the increased size of the electorate which may have favoured the Greens.
So, how do we read the runes for the forthcoming elections in May?
May local elections: what can we expect?
The Greens definitely have a momentum behind them after Gorton and Denton, and Cliftonville West. Their polling is up, as is their membership. Whether this is enough to gain them a substantial success in those elections is another thing. In the past, the left of centre voters have gained an appetite when it suits them to vote for whoever is likely to win against Reform or the Tories.
Can Reform peel off yet more votes from the Tories, or will Kemi Badenoch be able to point to modest green shoots of recovery for the conservatives? Are the failures of the past still likely to haunt the conservatives?
Both Badenoch and Farage made errors of judgement in support of Donald Trump’s war against Iran. The growing pain of economic dislocation will harm the government, it always does, but it is hurting them as well. The Tice tax avoidance issue is not a good look for Reform, no matter how it is dismissed.
Most of us do not have access to Real Estate Investment Trusts or REITs, and the Green slogan of making the rich pay more hits home when this sort of issue comes to the fore. Farage’s links to Trump, MAGA, and the special relationship are hurting him, as the UK electorate increasingly see Europe as Britain’s natural home. Brexit may not be overthrown just now, but undermined, subtly and continuously, most certainly.
What about Labour? Is Starmer secure, even if the election results for Labour are dire? Probably, but he may well be captured and forced to do things he might otherwise have refused to consider. In some ways I think his supporters are more at risk, and I think there may well be a serious reshuffle shortly, with the return of Angela Rayner, after all Tice’s blatant non-payment of tax, is far worse than anything she may have done, and she did resign fairly quickly.
Overall, it is not today Cliftonville, tomorrow the world, but the sands of change are shifting yet again.
One issue I have not touched upon is demographics. The Brexit result, and various elections since then, featured a strong cohort of elderly voters prepared to support parties like Reform. The Conservatives also relied heavily on this older cohort. The older voter was prepared to cast his or her ballot, turn up to hustings, protest about parking, potholes, development etc, and they still do, but time and tide wait for no one, and attrition is reducing their numbers.
Newer voters can’t recall Margaret Thatcher or Enoch Powell with affection, to them, they are historical figures nothing more. Their world is more online, less hidebound, more diverse. Sure, there are haters, racists, misogynists in all age groups, but the young are less worked up about diversity, their patriotism is different. The problem has been galvanising that vote, it is possible that Zack Polanski, may have found a way.
