Reform council leader says she has launched hunt for ‘cowards’ behind leaked video | Reform UK

Reform The leader of the UK’s most important local authority has told fellow councilors he has launched a hunt for “cowards” who leaked a recorded meeting in which he said those who disagreed with decisions would have to be “fucked”.

Bitter divisions among Reform members of the Kent county council, one of 10 directly controlled by Nigel Farage’s party, were revealed by a video of a chaotic internal meeting leaked by the Guardian at the weekend.

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, he shouts at other members and tells them they will “keep quiet” in scenes reminiscent of the viral “Jackie Weaver” video at a district council Zoom meeting in 2021.

In a message sent after the Guardian published the video, Kemkaran told Reform council members that he had raised his suspicions about who was responsible for “this betrayal” to Reform UK’s head office and said a “thorough investigation” had been launched.

In his message, he said, “It is really sad that there are people inside who smile at us, sit next to us in meetings, share jokes and anecdotes, and stab us in the back.”

“Those who do this are cowards. They are weak. They are stupid. They are incapable of showing true courage themselves, so they seek to harm those who do. They are obsessed with personal gain at the expense of group success. They cannot cope with disappointment and personal inadequacies, so they try to bring others down to their level.”

He added: “I want you to know… I have conveyed my suspicions to headquarters about who is responsible for this betrayal and a thorough investigation is currently underway. The guilty will be expelled from the Reform Party without delay. They will have no political future.”

Kemkaran had faced pressure on Sunday for his comments in footage of a meeting that took place in late August. The leader of Medway council has issued a statement saying she will be writing to Reform councilors at the leaked meeting to get an explanation after she told Reform councilors that other City council leaders she had met did not like her because she was a woman.

Labor Medway council leader Vince Maple said: “To suggest that I didn’t like her because she was a woman is utterly ridiculous.” He said his comments ran counter to the “collaborative approach” City councils have had to date when it comes to working together on local government reform (LGR) plans.

In the video, Kemkaran complained about other council leaders in Kent whom she had met in recent weeks, accusing them of a “shocking” level of ignorance about LGR plans and suggesting they disliked her because she was a woman.

Kent county council, which has an annual budget of £2.5bn, is thought to be a make-or-break example of whether the Reformation can be trusted to govern competently before 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 the LGR, which would result in their virtual elimination.

Kemkaran was seen telling Reform council members at the meeting: “We will live or die with this budget. If we don’t balance the books, you can forget about Reform winning the next election. This is very important.”

“If we can avoid increasing the whole council tax by 5%, that will 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, judging us every day, every minute of every day. Nigel knows this. He is very aware that we are the flagship council.”