Margate county councillor describes deselection as a ‘witch hunt’ amid comment and betting allegations

November 21, 2024 Kathy Bailes News 94

County Councillor Barry Lewis

By Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay and Gabriel Morris

Labour county councillor for Margate, Barry Lewis, has described his deselection by the Labour Party as “a witch hunt.”

Cllr Lewis, who has represented Margate since 2017, faced three allegations related to “concerning” remarks he made and placing bets on election results.

Last week, he was formally taken off the candidates’ list for the Kent County Council election next May after an earlier appeal was dismissed.

Cllr Lewis, who does not deny the claims but disputes the context, may stand as an independent at the poll.

According to paperwork, Cllr Lewis is said to have made a remark to a party colleague following a Thanet LGBTQ+ event, to which he had contributed funds from his member’s grant.

He was claimed to have said on November 27 2023: “Now, I’ve secured the gay vote.”

Last June, another senior member of the Labour team said Cllr Lewis was “excited” about having a Nigerian person on board. He is said to have claimed he “had 200 Nigerians in his pocket”.

On another occasion, in the run-up to the general election, he is alleged to have told an organiser he used third persons to place bets on elections.

In an email confirming his de-selection, a party official wrote the findings “were highly concerning and demonstrate poor political judgement”.

It added: “Elected representatives of the party should be supportive of the party’s policies and promote the party positively at all times.

“The panel felt that the appeal did not satisfactorily demonstrate that the original assessment team acted irrationally.”

Cllr Lewis said the two remarks were made as jokes in a social setting.

He added: “I think they have been taken out of context. It took more than a year to raise one of the remarks, but nothing was said at the time.

“They couldn’t find anything substantial in my work to criticise so they came up with these ridiculous distortions of what I meant. So it’s a witch hunt. There was nothing wrong in what I said.”

He said he did not bet on the July 4 general election but admitted he had asked third parties “a number of times over a number of years, which is not illegal” and added that a ban from betting shops some 10 years ago was “irrelevant.”

Cllr Lewis described the probable ending of his 47 years in the Labour Party as “like coming out of a bad marriage” but added that he was “enjoying the freedom.”

During his time as a county councillor he has supported projects such as the Thanet Summer Kitchen scheme and ‘Your Shops’ with Sharon Goodyer, been part of the Millmead Children’s Centre campaign – which achieved a stay of execution today {November 21}- persuaded KCC to put in place a number of 20mph zones and was vocal in his opposition to the Thanet Parkway station.

The Labour Party declined to comment.

94 Comments

  1. Why would anyone want to stay in a party that is being led by a toxic, compulsive liar, who can’t recognise genocide when it’s staring him in the face and who is more interested in starting WW3 than in listening to ordinary people?

  2. Yep-total bs charges to get rid of him by the sounds of it. 47 years is a long time, but it is no longer the Labour Party-it is the Tory Party.

    • All mainstream parties are part of the We Love Israel movement and are in hock to US foreign policy. To attack one party only is a denial of this all-party bias in favour of Israel’s acts of mass murder now judged to be criminal by the International Criminal Court.
      All political parties at Westminster are one and the same. I don’t vote for any of them.

      • True-but you expect this garbage from the Tories & better from supposed socialists, or we did-until July.

  3. He obviously put his party in a difficult position.
    If they took no action and this came out – there would have been stories about how Labour did nothing about their corrupt councillor’s homophobic and racist comments.
    Not a good look.

    • 1. If there is no laws or rules broken then he is not corrupt. It isn’t like he has even been filling his pockets with ‘freebies’ like most of the Labour Party have.

      2. Where is the homophobia or racism? Neither of his jokes can be described as such.

  4. So… if the party had selected him and these stories (that he doesn’t deny) had got out – what would the press have made of them?

    “Labour councillor in corruption, racism, homophobia storm!!!”

    From what I hear – he’s a hardworking councillor but I don’t think his party had any choice on the matter.

  7. This remark is totally defamatory. You clearly don’t know what you are talking about and should button it now!

  8. Barry Lewis is not the sort of man who could support the Labour Party ‘at all times’. He speaks out on behalf of Margate residents if he knows that a policy is wrong. He campaigns to make things better.
    His continued fight for millmead children’s centre needed his
    Complete conviction that the people of Dane Valley mattered more than the savings that might be made. His experience and his political strategy might just be able to save this hard working and capable team .
    I have worked on a number of projects with Barry .let the people of Margate decide whether they want to vote for him again! Who are these anonymous officials ?

      • Let’s hope he stands & they do-then we can show Labour & whatever snout filling Tory puppet they put up what we believe Labour really is.

    • Mrs Goodyear – Mr Lewis had a major flaw which I think is a major reason why his local party were so concerned. His flaw over recent times was a failure to engage his brain with his mouth. His wild quoted figures regarding Millmead Children’s Centre and his failure to respond to questions are a classic example. Accuracy would have not resulted in criticism of him. His use of his KCC allowance to help people is to be applauded but it was not his money, our money! Regarding his remarks and gambling in the past, I suspect these are final ammunition required by Local Party to get rd of him. He is not a man of modern Labour Party! I

    • Exactly-just look what happened to the very small number of Labour MP’s who voted against the two child cap & then the lone one left who voted against the fuel cut-all suspended. Labour MP’s laughing & cheering as they voted to kill thousands of pensioners & put more in hospital.

      They don’t want people like them or Barry Lewis in their party-they just wanted to fill it with Tories & lobbyists, while lying to us to get our votes & succeeded.

  9. Barry you are a silly billy!
    In the misty partly forgotten periods of our past, Barry could live long and prosper spouting his harmless Thanet~centric form of Marxism.
    Barry likes to bet on the gee gees and possibly the dogs and may have thought that election betting was OK, and it is, because unlike those within the Tory machine, he had no more idea of the outcome of the general election than the man in the moon, so it is not corrupt
    The throwaway remarks are just tasteless comments and in a better world , would have elicited no more response, than Barry don’t be so silly.
    Unfortunately we live in a world where there is a victim culture,of thin skins, a corrosive social media, which shouts corrupt at every turn, some of which we have seen here and a joyless bunch of functionaries insisting that even local politicians stay on message.
    Unless you are like Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn with a large following,your voice will be drowned out
    There ought to be a place for the Barry’s of this world but there isn’t and it is our fault as much as the political paries for allowing it to happen.
    We need more plurality not less.

  10. Barry is infamous for his inappropriate “humour” at the most unfortunate times. I can’t speak to whether he is corrupt or guilty of placing bets via third parties, neither of which sound like the man I’ve seen in action. But, I’ve heard him make far worse, far more inappropriate “jokes” publicly over the past decade. The ones cited are the tip of the iceberg!

    • Strange it took somebody over a year to ‘become offended’ & report it though doesn’t it? Seems like it was timed to coincide with getting rid of somebody who wants to work on behalf of the public prior to the election, to be replaced with another gauche caviar lobbyist type who takes ‘freebies’ & will follow the Tory, sorry Labour script like Billington.

        • Even the then face of eroding public decency & standards, young angry rebel John Lydon now tells us how much he loves the Royals & the Tories. He is now more establishment than Bill Grundy was back then.

          • The butter adverts made it clear what he is. Starmer went from editing a communist magazine, protesting at Wapping, during the Poll Tax etc to filling his pockets with hundreds of thousands from the Bourgeoisie. Though starving/freezing the elderly & poorest to death is in keeping with Stalin & others I guess.

  11. Sadly, Barry and Sharon seem to be past their prime in terms of connecting with today’s generation. They belong to an older mindset that often doesn’t consider the full impact of their words or actions. Barry, for example, openly discusses being a professional gambler—a statement that left me thinking, ‘What on earth?’ when I first met him. While it’s admirable that Sharon supports him, the truth is that they’re not relatable to younger people today. Their approach lacks the relevance needed to inspire or drive meaningful change. Perhaps it’s time for them to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, as their influence feels increasingly out of step with modern perspectives.

      • There are millions of people younger than Barry who gamble. The entire stock market is a giant casino, so anyone who pays into a pension fund is a gambler, and the so-called whizz kids who take risks with other people’s money are professional gamblers. Barry is a misfit in Labour because he’s a socialist and not because he might like a gamble.

    • If you want mindless drones who have to try to think about everything they say, just in case it upsets the snowflakes & that is a full-time position keeping up with what isn’t acceptable-as it changes on their irrational whims on a daily & often hourly basis & this one apparently upset somebody a year after they heard it! Guess retrospective ‘triggering’ is now a thing in our cultural landscape of permanent victimhood & being offended.

      I would have thought that Barry & Sharon have done nothing but connect with the younger generation-with their involvement on projects for young children-like delivering food to them to stop them starving & their often young parents, as our useless & uncaring governments have no interest. They only pretend to when there is a camera filming them.

      We know the type who is going to get parachuted in to replace him-we saw it with Polly Billington-somebody who says all the right things, but less than a week after promising here that Labour would get rid of the two child cap she savaged then went & voted to keep it in place. In that article she also promised to keep people warm & then a few weeks later again voted to condemn thousands of pensioners to death by scrapping the fuel relief.

      At the same time she was also enjoying her 500 quid ‘freebie’ tickets she can easily afford from Warners, for her & her partner to go & see the Pet Shop Boys in concert-of course there are no freebies in politics, they always want something down the line & we have already seen how greedy the cabinet & especially the leader are for taking cash & other inducements for doling out contracts in return.

      Of course she knows all about lobbying-while making sure everybody knows about her green values, she directly contradicts that for working for a lobbyist whose clients include a massive gas polluter in the US. I would rather have a true socialist who works for the people & makes the odd naff/odd joke or comment & isn’t woke, than somebody sipping lattes & reading the Guardian in Islington-tut tutting at the plight of the poor-as that now fully exposed rag does after cheering on the cuts to the poorest & most vulnerable like all the other ‘far left’ organs have done & then condemning them to even worse poverty with their actions.

      • ” & isn’t woke”

        Being woke means being alert and fighting against systemic racism and injustice. A word borne of musician Leadbelly, in the black civil rights movement in 1930s segregationist america. Its still in use by those folk today. So please, do apply some self awareness, critical thought and education on things you’re fighting against, lest you look like a racist who’s against black civil rights.

    • I don’t see how anybody could say that was homophobic, or that the other comment was racist. You can say it wasn’t funny, doesn’t make sense etc-but it comes off as lame shouting racist & whatever phobic as Netanyahu shouting Antisemitism at the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant for war crimes, or any broadcaster or journalist who doesn’t accept their propaganda releases & asks legitimate questions.

      It is done to shut down that conversation by the fear of cancellation, losing their job etc & just shows what cowards the Labour Party are now-they couldn’t find any fault with his work, so they pull out a couple of ancient jokes/comments & that he had a gambling issue like many other people to get rid of him & what they view as his damned socialism & caring about non-millionaires.

      • They won’t have said the comments were homophobic or racist, rather that he’s favoured the first with money and the second with a postion and that ,from his comments, both were done solely to gain extra votes , rather than being gestures or genuine support and engagement.
        Little to do with the real world and all to do with internal party machinations in order to create the “correct” party / image.
        As his comments within IoTN articles and comments have shown , he doesn’t come across as having a grasp of what he talks about , declines to engage in debate ( but Ms. Billington is worse on that front) and appears to be some sort of ideological demagogue. Labour are digging a hole for themselves at a furious rate and are going to need a united front in the future in order to stop becoming a laughing stock at the next election.
        Barry isn’t a good fit for the current labour party, it’ll be interesting to see how much support he really has , when he stands as an independent ( if of course he chooses to do so).

    • Peter, i did and got laughter from the Labour members in my group. Any joke taken out of context can be twisted, ask jimmy carr.

      • Both Jimmy Savile and Bernard Manning induced laughter from their audiences during their time. Does Barry Lewis draw this distinction for himself to the very same degree?
        No, cracking jokes is for the clowns and the comics not a serious politician.
        Barry Lewis is not a serious politician.

        • I am a serious politician who connects with people of all ages. I have a background in the entertainment industry where i met many famous comedians. Comedy can be a wonderful way of communicating a message. Unlike many politicians i have not become a robot that is programmed by a political hierarchy

  13. Barry is 77 I believe, younger than me, but like me Old Labour. The current lot who have “entered” the labour Party, are not in anyway socialist, they are opportunists interested only in power. I call them Lab/Con which is what they are.

    • I honestly believe they are worse then the Tories now & have made the Tories even more redundant than they achieved themselves. It is turning into 1984 with this lot.

    • Sorry Barry, I am in my 9th Decade and get a bit mixed up sometimes. I was secretary of the Gravesend Tribune Group in the 70’s, and we had that young socialist firebrand Neil Kinnock as a speaker once, I wonder what happened to him? Do you think the late John Prescott would be able to become a member of the Labour Party if he could apply today?

      • Sadly he let various people/image consultants in the party change his funny personality-where he made jokes & comments & telling him he needed to be more like Thatcher. Worked out really well in the 1987 & 1992 elections.

  15. I wonder if the local Labour Party actually expelled Barry. More likely, it was the group of paid officials based in Maidstone. They answer to the London leadership NOT to actual Labour members. They are employed to monitor and oversee the (declining) membership , digging out past comments or jokes that can be twisted to smear and expel members who do not toe the Starmer line. It,s ironic that, as Labour under Starmer moves closer to the Tories, its internal discipline grows closer to that of the former Communist East Germany. Referred to as “the Starmer Stasi”.

    • I was de selected by London head office, labourl county councillor s locally at kcc all wrote backing me and are angry at what has happened in the witch hunt. So has my nigerian friend who introduced me to his community and was witness to the conversation that has been taken out of context. By the way the regional officer who reported me for a quip a year afterwards actually laughed at my joke at the time.

      • did you consider they were laughing AT you in a state of shock and nervous defense you’d say what you did, or did that never cross your mind?

    • “its internal discipline grows closer to that of the former Communist East Germany”

      I’ve got a copy of the new book “everything and everyone I don’t like is communist, a childs guide to online political discussion” for you.

  17. “Cllr Lewis, who has represented Margate since 2017, faced three allegations related to “concerning” remarks he made and placing bets on election results.”

    Very, very interesting. That was kept extremely quiet…

  18. Barry should have done what Polly Billington did and asked Kathy Bailes not to allow comments on the above news item.

  19. I once sat next to Barry Lewis at a charity dinner & found him to be amusing & charming company. I am sorry to hear of his ‘fall from grace’ for he worked hard on behalf of the underprivileged.

    Polly Billington was given the benefit of the doubt at the last General Election, a wave of revulsion against Tory mismanagement over 14 years facilitated her victory. It will not happen again!

    She has squandered the goodwill of the electorate by supporting and voting for the withdrawal of winter fuel payments from pensioners. The unedifying spectacle (pun intended) of Starmer, his wife and cabinet members parading in expensive attire and glasses paid for by donor Lord Ali will come back to haunt her and the entire Labour Party at the next election.

    An indication of this is the recent election victory of the Reform Candidate Thomas Mallon in Dartford. It is an indicator of which way the political wind is blowing. Expect an avalanche of wins for Reform UK at the forthcoming KCC election in May 2025, including here in East Thanet.

    Voters are sick of the hypocrisy of both Labour & Tories. As other contributors have observed, there is little to differentiate between them. The future belongs to Reform UK!

  21. As in America and other countries, there has been an upsurge in voting for so called “Populist” political parties. They are largely racist/fascist and the ill informed, and ignorant find them attractive as they always have simplistic answers to complicated problems! Many of them, like Trump are just anti-establishment, and get the popular vote, because they are not part of the Established Political class. Polly Belligham will find this out to her cost!

    • No, Dumpton, these populists simply reflect the wishes and desires of ordinary people. Hence the meaning of populism.
      Saying problems are complicated is a trick of so-called “experts”. Everything can be simplified. Then we can see through them and the solutions can easily be found.
      The ill-informed and ignorant fall for your view point, instead.

    • Some of us that are labelled “racist/fascist” have no problem with it.
      Knowing that resorting to insults & name calling is the best that someone who disagrees with our opinions can come up with.
      I will now add “ill informed & ignorant” to my list of names not to be offended by.

  22. At one of Trumps hustings he said “we love the poorly educated”. Of course he would, they are easier to dupe! Hitler needed something to blame for the collapse of the First World war, something that couldn’t hit back, and he found it with people of the Jewish faith! Trump is following Hitlers play book, and is blaming migrants! The so called populist parties in Europe are doing the same, ergo the recent riots against asylum seekers here! Reminds me of Chrystal night, when ill informed and ignorant thugs attacked German Jews, and their churches, which eventually led to the murder of millions of men, women, children, babies, the elderly, the sick and infirm, LEGALLY. Beware of simplistic answers to complex problems, thats what Reform will try and do, and the ill informed and ignorant will full for it!

    • Possibly it’s the only ignorant that simply dismiss others views out of hand. It’s definitely the ill informed that believe Jews worship in churches and that any murder is legal.

      • A synagogue is a church, the Jewish faith is one of the 3 Abrahamic faiths, the others are Islam, and Christianity, which are all monotheistic. This means they adhere to the first commandment. German Jews were easily identified once the holocaust got underway, because all German Identity Cards stipulated what was the persons religion, and Jews had to state their religion was Jew!

        • A synagogue is a synagogue and a church is a church. There is a great distinction here.
          Christianity is not monotheistic. They worship Jesus as a deity calling him the Son of God. Roman Catholics go further and also worship Mary as a deity and call her the Mother of God. That is not monotheism; it is paganism.
          Islam is nearer to being a pure religion when part of the declaration of faith is “there is no God but one God”.

    • M.M.Rees.
      If you have read my comment properly I can’t see your confusion.
      Just to clarify for you, no murder is legal.
      My comment was made in response to one by Dumpton.
      If you go back & read their comment carefully you will see my point. As a little helper for you, pay careful attention to their word written in upper case.

        • M.M.Rees. I really don’t understand your line of questioning. I have neither said that the Holocaust was legal or acceptable. You appear to be set on some sort of confrontation for some reason. I’m afraid I’m not interested. I’m sure you can find someone else to argue with.

      • Peter & the rest of you, Hitler made it legal to kill not only people of the Jewish faith, but Homosexuals, Gypsies, and anyone who stood in the way of the NAZI’#s, see the Nuremburg laws! I was married to a German woman, and her father, although a decent man, once said “Adolf swindled me”. The only people who were allowed to call Hitler by his first name were the SS, and my father-in-law had spent 2 years on the Eastern front! He was educated under the NAZI’s, as was his wife, my mother-in- law, and they were totally brainwashed by the system. If the Europeans, and the rest of the world don’t stand up to the Russians, we may well see North Koreans in our streets, and not as migrants! The bone headed grunts who attacked helpless women and children asylum seekers are not British, they are scum, and make anyone who considers themseslves British ashamed!

        Incidentally, the King is a migrant, his father was mostly Greek, and he is descended from the Dutch, Danes, Germans, and a bit of English. My family name is a straight line to 1066, its French, so I suppose I am descended from migrants too!

        • The enlightened among us (excluding you, Dumpton) call ourselves Europeans. Thus the white indigenous of this great continent are not immigrants, migrants, etc.
          We are proud to thus identify ourselves.

        • Dumpton- as you say, the Nazis brought in new laws to make their actions legal. Legal, but brutal and absolutely immoral.

      • “She’s lovely really” says the man who has previously called her- i.e. me -a “Welsh whore” on a comment thread.

        • I’ve seen you repeat this many times. Could you say what story this comment was made under, so I can go and have a read. Will you now be repeating this new description of you?

          • Mr Brown- you won’t be able to see the original comment, as Kathy Bailes has deleted it. It is not a “New description””, as it was made quite a while ago.

        • “She’s lovely really” was said 7 hours ago. So I would say that’s quite new. Will you be repeating it regularly going forward?

          • Peter Checksfield has made many racist and misogynistic about me on these comment threads over the past few years. “She’s lovely” is not a statement he actually means.

            What does “going forward” mean?

          • I don’t understand exactly how you know if someone actually means what they say or not and simply dismiss it, but there you go.
            Also. Without meaning to sound patronising, “going forward” is hardly difficult to understand. “In the future” or “from now on”.

  24. Reform UK will sweep the board at the forthcoming KCC election due the the unpopularity of both Tories & Labour. They need not post a single leaflet through a single letterbox in order to achieve this, such is the strength of public feeling and the depth of loathing for Tories and Labour.

    Tories were incompetent and corrupt, but Labour is worse. Even the Tories did not stoop so low as to withdraw winter fuel payments from the elderly just before the onset of winter. As a result, pensioners will freeze and die, for many lack the capacity to jump through the various hoops in order to claim pension credit and qualify for winter fuel payments.

    Previously, Labour hypocrites portrayed themselves as compassionate, but in implementing this cruel policy, an attack on the most vulnerable, this has proved to be a fallacy.

    Shame on Poly Billington for voting for such a damaging measure. I predict that come the next election, she will find herself out in the cold!

      • Peter, its as well to remember 50 members of Johnson’s government resigned due to his compulsive lying, and other misdemeanours! He wanted to be a mini Trump, but we have a different parliamentary system, and at the last General Election only 34% voted Labour (The Times 31/8.24) This resulted in an obscene Labour majority, that even Trump wouldn’t be able to swindle! Once again it proved that more people voted against this Labour government, for for it, Duuurh.

  25. Dumpton, observant Jews attend a synagogue whereas observant Christians go to church on Sundays. There lies at least one distinction.
    Christianity is not monotheistic. They worship Jesus Christ as a deity while Roman Catholics worship Mary as both a deity and the Mother of God. That is not monotheism … it is paganism.
    Perhaps the truest religion is Islam which regards Jesus as a prophet of the highest order as well as being only a man. There is no God but one God is part of the declaration of faith.
    In the Jewish Talmud, Jesus burns in hell in his own semen. Charming, I am sure.

Comments are closed.