By Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay
The Green Party leader was back in Margate for the second time in 48 hours to celebrate a hard-fought by-election victory.
Standing side by side with Rob Yates, the winner of the Cliftonville division seat in the Kent County Council (KCC) by-election, Zack Polanski addressed a crowd of around 300 cheering supporters to deliver the message: “Thank you.”
As the sun started to sink over the sea, the leader declared to wild applause and whistles: “In case you haven’t seen the result – the Labour vote down, the Tory vote down, the Reform vote down but the Green Party won.”
Mr Polanski also announced that the party’s membership has now topped 225,000 – up 25,000 since the Gorton and Denton by-election where the Greens won a parliamentary seat Reform was widely expected to snatch.
He said that within minutes of the Cliftonville result, he was getting messages of parties celebrating “all over England”.
Cllr Yates, a former Margate mayor, won the by-election with 2,068 votes – about 5% ahead of Reform UK’s Marc Rattigan.
Praising Cllr Yates, Polanski said: “You have got a councillor who will represent every single person in Cliftonville; who will reach out with compassion, care and humanity; to listen to people who disagree with him but to also recognise that we are building bridges and make hope normal again.”
For Reform UK, it was the first by-election to be fought since their landslide at KCC last year and was regarded as a “must-win”.
After the declaration victor Rob Yates declared: “There is a huge appetite here to live with a politics of hope, empathy, and local action, rather than a politics of division. And I believe this represents what the British public want across the country.
“I plan to continue being a community politician who represents everyone. And regardless of who you voted for, I will serve you. This is just the beginning.”
KCC Green Party group leader Mark Hood said: “This result is seismic for Kent and for the country. Reform lost this seat after less than a year due to their dismal record of failure, chaos and managed decline running KCC – the defeat is a major embarrassment for Nigel Farage”.
It brings the number of councillors in the Green group at County Hall to five.
The 37.7% turnout was higher than last year by more than 4% and local observers say the result may have hinged on a tactical “anyone but Reform UK” element to voting patterns.
The by-election was sparked after Daniel Taylor, who was returned as the Reform UK member for Cliftonville last May, was jailed for 12 months for controlling behaviour towards his wife.
He was suspended after his arrest last summer and expelled from Reform when he pleaded guilty to the offence in January.
Taylor was one of 57 Reform UK councillors (of 81) elected to serve at County Hall in a landslide victory.
But since then, the party has expelled seven councillors and suffered two defections.
RESULT
Rob Yates (Green Party) – 2,068
Marc Rattigan (Reform UK) – 1,768
Charlie Leys (Conservative) – 811
Joanne Bright (Labour) – 557
Lucy Gray (Independent) – 68
Dr Mo Shafaei (Liberal Democrats) – 63
Majority: 301
Hopefully they can influence the protection of farmland
Get him to help with the gross litter problem!!!
Nothing to do with the KCC, its a TDC problem
Have the other candidates commented on Rob’s win yet? I do hope they were all more gracious than some of the poor losers commenting on here.
Over 400 people turned out to see rob last night. Wonderful atmosphere, i felt that hope has won over hate and Thanet led the way in the demise of UKIP the same is happening now to reform
I am so pleased the Green Party won the election. People are beginning to see Reform for what they are. A divisive organisation spreading fear and hate and all to distract their supporters from their real aim- to protect and line the pockets of the rich.
Labour came forth; wow!
Hardly a surprise, the left leaning voter now has the option of a party that’s further to the left so that’s where their x went. It’ll be reated in the may local elections across the country.
The labour and greens will form alliances in local and county level councils and move further leftwards, it’ll not be awkward for any of them.
UK politics is becoming ever more polarised, which is hardly a good thing either way. Starmer will soon be gone, Rayner likely to take his place and the red rosette will take a very green tinge.
Economy will be comprehensively wrecjked by 2029 and taxes will go ever upwards.
The countries digging a hole it’ll not climb out of in many of our lifetimes.
TDC are lready playing games to get more cash in. They’re changing the way they collect leaseholder service charges and ground rents, rather than splitting service charges in 2 6 months apart and a balancing charge, they now invoice in full in april and charge has jumped about 50%. In a notification letter in march there was mention of being able to pay monthly, but when invoice arrived no mention of that option.
Costs not helped by the council moving its energy supplier to one which charges £1 a day for standing charge on a meter that uses less than 50p of electric each day. Nearly double the standing charge of previous supplier.
Do that across all the councils meters and it’s a substantial increase in costs.
What you set out bears no relation to how people feel and react. One can look at the election results but cannot accurately identify the reasons people voted and didn’t vote.
While it’s fun to guess the only way of getting any sense of the reasons is when you canvass opinion with the people.
On my chats I’d say voters weren’t moved to go further left. They were moved to vote for Rob Yates because of his community activity and, of course why he left Labour – because of his values.
Also, the Labour Pty prohibit voting alliances. Thanet Greens have made informal pacts with local Labour a number of times in recent years only to have them renege on agreements. I doubt Thanet Greens will try again.
While Labour, locally and nationally, persist in their entitled arrogance about “their votes” alliances will be hard to formulate.
Thanet Greens attract votes from all the other parties, this is a known fact. It’s not about “left, centre and right” but more about core values like rights to life, looking out for neighbours, caring for what your environment looks like, supporting local businesses, refusing the hostile and combative politics that’s so common among other parties.
It’s why “Hope” is a basic brand for the Greens.
Fourth
As you’re the self-professed expert on absolutely everything, why do you think Ms. Bright failed so miserably to shine in this election and totally humiliated Thanet Labour?
Well PC, for a start I am not a self professed “expert” on anything,you are saying that not me.However, since you ask, “humiliated”, well that’s what football teams and political parties do best,and if and when circumstances change humiliation often turns into triumph it’s a matter of a turn of the same coin.
The Labour government wasn’t elected by an enthusiastic electorate, it was elected because the Tories had made such a mess over 14 years of power.Since July 2024, Labour has been defensive and lacking a reason for staying in power.What does change mean,and how does it effect the daily lives of the ordinary person? We are also an ageing society and making the case for a moderate wealth transfer from some groups to others less well off,hasn’t been popular. Look how often comments are made here about those on benefits, even working benefits.There is also a belief in returning to the past, and that someone in the goodness of their hearts will build a widget factory of some sort in Thanet, and employ all those people not getting an education,training ,or a job, when the reality is colder and less forgiving.
The TDC Labour group is not doing badly, even if Mrs Ben Dover doesn’t like them, but then the previous administrations were bloody awful, so not a difficult target to beat, but they have done some good things on social housing.Planning is still a disaster, and looking at Westwood cross,I am not surprised that there are so many protests about development.
There is also an unhappiness within the country in general, that wants better performance, but that someone else, notably the rich ,should pay for it.The truth is while things are not great, they can be turned round, but I am not sure that betting firstly on Reform and now the Greens is going to produce positive change.
Until the nation is prepared to accept that change, structural change, not the superficial change often served up, is required, we will continue to pick enemies, like migrants, the poor,the government, the EU,etc in a vain attempt to right the ship.
Our destiny is in our own hands, and to quote JFK, ask not what my country can do for me, but instead ask what I can do for my country.
My advice to you PC is to go to the library, and study our nation’s history in the last few centuries, and then you might be better informed, and feel less inadequate when finding your own misconceptions fall away under scrutiny.
Nah… she might be a nice person but Ms. Bright was the wrong candidate, far too wishy-washy and with an ill-advised campaign that was seemingly encouraged by the deeply unpopular Ms. Billington.
Labour have humiliated themselves, hardly been the shining beacons of integrity they said was needed (i’m not saying for one moment the last lot were any better).
I travel around a bit and there seems to be a trend in that labour councillors trying to get reelected don’t use the word labour on their leaflets, instead they talk of their own personl local work etc.
Standing for labour has become nearly as pointless as standing for the tories.
You’re right George, thanks for the correction. Apologies for my mistake.
Wasn’t Rob Yates with Labour though? They all move about their party politics now to suit their best chances of being in.
I think the Green trendies have arrived from Brighton to take over. I hope they stick to their promises for the environment so no more unnecessary housing developments or dirty polluting industry. We are a coastal area and have some lovely beaches and harbours we need to invest in along with tourism.
It’s more accurate to say Rob Yates left Labour to retain his politics. As for the rest the Greens have 4 or 5 KCC Cllrs which is not enough to decide policy, that’s still Reform.
Umm! The economy wrecked by 2029? It’s not exactly humming now after 14 years of bone headed austerity,where every part of the public domain has been deprived of investment.PC’s bus services,potholes, long waits in A&E, social care,defence,you name it, its been denuded if funding.Addedvto this there are private monopolies allowed to run riot in water,energy,and in out sourced services.
What about all those billionaires and millionaires leaving the UK because they were asked to pay a bit of tax,including the last PMs wife for God’s sake, are they still here,and if not did we miss them?
There’s a lot wrong with all parties and we the people are responsible for electing incompetents on all sides, but that is not solved by electing the worst of the worst that is available, mainly on the basis of unsound advice from GB news and tge Daily Mail.
If the right were led by John Major, Ken Clarke or Andy Street there might be a case for a rightward roll back, but that’s not the case, instead we are offered Farage,Badenoch,Jenrick and Kemkaran, and that’s no option.
You don’t like Badenoch now? Would be lovely to see a black woman leading the country, even if your beloved Labour party can’t even bring themselves to choose a black OR a woman leader.
Quite agree, there’s not a decent plan amongst them, but we can’t keep borrowing and taxing , handing out ever more welfare and not making efforts to train people to improve their chances of finding some work. No problem with boosting peoples earnt incomes but letting millions languish forever on the taxpayers efforts is plain daft.
There will always be a few that truly can’t do anything, but the numbers currently are unsustainable. A report in the papers this week suggests nearly half of scottish kids are special needs, society has got things very wrong to even label that many, let alone the disaster looming if they really are special needs.
The there’s the hidden taxation on working people for the gas , water, electric, broadband social tariffs and reportedly the cut rates offered to uc claomants at museums etc. Then we have tdc paying off the balance of claimants already discounted council tax, so the rest of us are either going to get reduced services or bigger bills going forward ( minus the income from selling off anything they can find in back of the cupboard).
Far too many incentives to not work or train.
As for the rapacious private companies have the tories and now labour not effectively continued the trend with hs2 and the various net zero schemes and incentives to the private sector?
The absurd arguments about oil and gas from north sea being on global market and so of no benefit to uk, conveniently ignores the jobs it supports and taxes it pays ( hardly an undertaxed sector) , there’s little or any public financial risk and if it’s not economical to extract the companies won’t do it.
The unemployed or disabled on benefits are not the biggest issue at all. Nor those pesky boat people. The fact the middle and lower classes carry more of the burden of tax and keeping the country afloat is. The lower wages that companies that make billions, the fact the same companies pay extremely low taxes and many forms of high incomes are mainly untaxed is…. The rich getting rich is for a reason. The gap is getting bigger and companies like Tesco that tell us they need to cut services, staff and raise prices make record bumper profits year on year through wars etc all the things that mainstream media say are the reason we all need to struggle, is….. unfortunately people have always believed welfare benefits for disabled and the poor are the biggest issue, it’s a classic distraction. The system needs reforming for sure but even reformed the current working normal tax payer would be hit harder because some are taking. Massive amounts they could never spend out of the economy this isn’t a tin hat theory it’s fact
Did he have time to heal any breasts?
Straighten up and we’ll let you know
My boobs went south a long time ago.
One fact has been overlooked, there was additional 500 votes this year most i assume went to the greens,
I have just been reading the green party manifesto. Wow it’s a very expensive looking one with very little explanation as to how they might fund it.
hi Lee, by creating a fairer, greener economy. You can find the details here https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/creating-a-fairer-greener-economy/
I have to say whilst I am not a massive fan of any of the parties if I’m honest, the greens seem to be the current most sensible for wanting to improve our lives whilst one eye on the future. I’m not sure on their leader at all.
Congrats to Rob.
Stop agreeing with me, it’s annoying.
Time for an easily understood Proportional Representation (PR) voting system! The Scots, the N.Irish, and Welsh all have one for their Assemblies (but not the English), although not perfect, they are better than the First Past the Post codswallop!