‘Suck it up’: leaked video exposes bitter infighting at Reform UK’s flagship Kent council | Reform UK

Bitter divisions at Reform UK’s flagship county council were laid bare in leaked video of a chaotic internal meeting where members were told they would be “fucked” if they did not accept decisions.

Councilors can be seen complaining about “backbiting” and being ignored by their leader Linden Kemkaran, who told them they would “go bankrupt” and that Reform might forget about winning the general election if they didn’t balance the City’s budget.

In an extraordinary recording showing the inner workings of Reform’s Kent operation, Kemkaran shouts at other members before telling them they will “keep quiet” in scenes reminiscent of the viral “Jackie Weaver” video from a 2021 district council Zoom meeting.

Kent county council, which has an annual budget of £2.5bn and is one of 10 county councils over which Nigel Farage’s party has direct control, is being treated as a gauge of success or failure on whether Reform can be trusted to govern competently ahead of the general election.

It faces two major challenges: the need to meet a legal duty to balance its budget and questions about whether Reform will have to raise council tax as a result; the other focuses on City councils’ response to national plans for local government reform (LGR) that would result in their virtual elimination.

However, allegations have also been made that a culture of abuse and bullying has caused deep divisions in the Reform group. The Guardian was told that around eight formal complaints had been made to Reform’s south-east regional manager in the past three months.

While 56 councilors were elected to the Kent district council in the Reform, one of them joined Ukip and the other was dismissed from his post in the cabinet due to the brawl. At least one other person was recently suspended amid allegations about his behavior.

At the beginning of the video, Kemkaran said: “Because I’m not a dictator or an autocrat, I like feedback, I like to debate. I like to hear what everyone thinks. But when it comes to making really big decisions, and LGR is one of them… Sometimes I’ll make a decision that may not be to everyone’s liking in the group. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to screw it up.”

Gape-jawed councilors were visibly shocked by the comment, which foreshadowed a meeting in which Kemkaran later muted the meeting to prevent him from speaking.

“We will live or die on this budget. If we don’t balance the books you can forget about Reform winning the next election. This is very important,” he told them.

“If we can avoid increasing the whole council tax by 5%, that would be the best thing we can do to show that Reform can actually run something as big as a Kent council, because let’s not forget that we are the showcase of the KCC. People are looking at us, they are judging us every day, every minute of every day. Nigel knows that. He is very aware that we are the flagship council.”

The comments sparked dissent from councilors at a meeting in late August.

Councilor Paul Thomas complained that Reform supporters had not been informed of the LGR plans by Kemkaran and other members of the council leadership, adding: “So, frankly, the question is: Is this the right leader and the right cabinet?”

There has also been controversy over Kemkaran’s plan to inform increasingly unhappy councilors through a scheme in which each cabinet member would ‘mentor’ four randomly selected councillors.

Another councillor, Dean Burns, said: “Let’s face it, the situation within the group is not great at the moment.” “I work my ass off on my own portfolio and I still get my ass hit with a stick every time.”

“There is a lot of backbiting and it comes from the top down,” he added, requesting to be able to choose who his mentor will be. Kemkaran replied: “I will think about it.”

Later in the meeting, Kemkaran complained about other council leaders she had met in Kent in recent weeks, accusing them of a “shocking” level of ignorance about the upcoming LGR plans and claiming they did not like her because she was a woman.

It also touched on proposals developed by consultants at KPMG for the City and other councils in response to the government’s LGR plans, as well as an alternative commissioned by Reform.

“It has the potential to completely flood the process because it will score very high in all of the government’s scoring methodologies, but they won’t want it to succeed. In a way, it’s the smartest way to get a foot in the door but still be part of the process.”

Other councilors appeared confused about the strategy, with Kemkaran saying: “If we screw this up in Kent and get confused about the LGR and take KCC out of the decision-making process and something gets done and KCC isn’t on the table, it’s going to look really bad.”

“We must remain steadfastly focused on balancing this budget and showing that we can run a council without us all fighting like rats in a sack.”

Members of the reform council who spoke to the Guardian were reluctant to speak on the record. But one of them said: “Many of us are now hopeless about this situation and feel that this situation cannot continue any longer.”

Labor and the Liberal Democrats, who form the largest opposition party on the council, said Reform’s flagship council was “thrown into chaos”.

Antony Hook, the Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition in Kent, described the recordings of the meeting as “truly shocking”.

“It reveals that the reform administration made decisions and made plans based on party advantage rather than the interests of the public. The recording also reveals that the council leader spoke to colleagues in an abusive and unprofessional manner that could rightly not be tolerated in most workplaces,” he said.

A Labor spokesman said: “Last week the council confirmed that despite promising to reduce waste and make savings, they have come nowhere near that. And now it seems Reform politicians in Kent are more interested in fighting among themselves than working in the interests of their constituents.”

A Reform UK Kent spokesman said: “The Reform leadership in Kent is united behind our election promise to deliver value for money and fix 30 years of Tory mismanagement.

“We have made savings worth tens of millions of pounds in just five months, made significant progress towards reducing the authority’s debt and are changing Kent county council’s practices to ensure every pound spent represents the best value for taxpayers.”