A Blanket Finish: How Kent County Council Election Race Could Pan Out
How the parties are placed in the countdown to polling day
Elections come and elections go, but the political battle for control of Kent County Council is about as intense as any poll can get…
But who is likely to be in the driver’s seat as the candidates race to the finishing line?
The poll on May the 1st is shaping up to be one of the tightest contests in the history of the county, with a record number of candidates standing in the hope of representing the 81 divisions in the county.
There’s a lot at stake in the Garden of England, but for the first time in several decades, it seems that the Conservatives are in real danger of losing control in an area long-regarded as true-blue Tory heartland.
Here is my first analysis of the parties’ prospects, starting with the Conservative and the Reform Party…
The Conservative Party:
While the party currently enjoys what looks like a reasonably comfortable majority, with 55 seats, it is facing an almighty tussle to maintain control at County Hall and is under considerable pressure from a range of sources.
Chief among these is the emergence of the Reform Party, headed by the talismanic figure of Nigel Farage. Formerly the Ukip party, now rebranded under its new name, it presents a very real threat to the Conservatives.
Many seasoned Tories look back to the election in 2013 and doubt that lessons have been learned. Back then, Ukip was in the political ascendancy and nearly pulled off what would have been nothing short of an astonishing victory, sweeping up 17 seats while the Conservatives lost 27. The result continues to haunt the party and the possibility of a re-run in 2025 will be giving party chiefs a nightmare.
As to the electoral battleground, key issues will be housing and development and tensions over the Green Belt and inevitably, the migrants continuing to arrive in their thousands along Kent’s shoreline.
One interesting figure is the high number of Tory councillors who are standing aside in the May poll, with 27 deciding they will not be candidates.
Best result: Securing enough divisions - wards - to retain control of the county council with a smaller majority may be about as good it gets. With a new leader finding her feet, it is a case of lowering expectations for the party as it tries to recover from an election hammering punters gave it just last year.
Worst result: Losing outright control and being pushed into opposition would be humiliating. Could be forced to strike a deal with another party - for the first time in its history - and assuming there is another party willing to join forces.
Vulnerable pressure points: Virtually anywhere in the county.
The Reform Party:
The political new kid on the block has a certain swagger about it as it continues to ride high in the opinion polls and to take seats away from its opponents in various local councils.
However, a degree of caution is needed. The Reform Party is not the Ukip party, which capitalised on the popular support it had to press for a Brexit referendum. It succeeded, not least because of the political guile of its leader Nigel Farage. He rewrote the rules of campaigning in a way which drew heavily on public disenchantment with the political mainstream and the refrain that the party was not like the others.
Kent has been and continues to be a key target for the party, not least because of the ongoing crisis of tens of thousands of migrants crossing the Channel and the failure of successive governments to get a grip on the issue.
In 2013, Ukip was propelled to prominence in the county council election, when it came close to causing a major upset and won 17 seats. Four years later, it lost every single seat.
It is increasingly optimistic about its prospects, and if you were looking for signs that it is poised for success, the party won a recent by-election in north Kent, taking a seat in Swanscombe and Greenhithe previously held by an independent.
It has not all been plain sailing: Howard Cox, the Cranbrook businessman who has led the ‘fair fuel’ campaign and was Reform party candidate in the Mayoral election in London, recently quit in a row over the party’s stance on free speech, saying he was told to keep quiet over the issues raised by the controversial figure of Tommy Robinson.
Good result: Winning outright control of the county council is not impossible. Has it got enough fuel in the tank to get it over the finishing line in first place?
Bad result: Picks up fewer seats than it needs and could find itself out of the picture if other parties have the numbers to form some kind of coalition.
Pressure points: None given where it is starting from but areas like Thanet and Dover are likely to be key targets.