The Green Party has taken a Kent County Council seat directly from Reform UK in a by-election in Cliftonville, Thanet – a result that leaves Reform just six seats away from losing overall control of England’s largest local authority, less than a year after winning a landslide majority that Nigel Farage himself declared would be a “shop window” for how his party would govern Britain.
Green candidate Rob Yates won the seat with 2,068 votes, representing 39% of the vote, defeating Reform’s Marc Rattigan who received 1,767 votes – 33% – in a result that will send a significant signal three weeks before the May 7 local elections across England.
The result and what triggered it
The by-election was called after the jailing of Daniel Taylor, a former Reform UK councillor who was given a 12-month sentence in February for controlling and coercive behaviour towards his wife. His conviction and imprisonment forced the vacancy in Cliftonville – a ward in Thanet, on the Kent coast – that the Greens have now taken directly from a Reform hold.
The margin of victory was clear but not overwhelming, with the Greens winning by six percentage points. But in a ward where Reform had previously held the seat, and in a council that Reform has positioned as its flagship demonstration of populist governance, the symbolism of the result is significant.
What the winner said
Rob Yates, an offshore wind farmer, gave a victory speech that captured both the local and national significance of the result. “This result shows that across Kent and across the country the Greens are the antidote to Reform,” he said.
He placed the victory in historical context: “Twelve years ago Nigel Farage was parading down Cliftonville high street, and now we have turned it green.”
He framed the choice on offer in terms that echo Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s national messaging: “There is a huge appetite here to live with a politics of hope, empathy and local action, rather than a politics of division.”
Polanski himself celebrated the result, describing it as proof that “Greens can win anywhere” – a message of particular importance ahead of May 7, when the party is expected to stand candidates across England and hopes to demonstrate that its national polling surge can translate into councillors and council control.
The bigger picture for Kent County Council
The by-election result is about more than one seat. When Reform swept to control of Kent County Council in last year’s local elections, winning 57 of the 81 seats, it represented one of the party’s most tangible achievements – a genuine demonstration that Reform could convert polling into power and govern one of the largest local authorities in England.
That majority has been steadily eroded. A string of suspensions and defections – including the video leak in which council leader Linden Kemkaran told colleagues to “fucking suck it up,” the expulsion of five councillors in a single week, and the defection of seven former Reform councillors to Restore Britain – has reduced the party’s seat count before this week’s by-election.
With the Cliftonville defeat, Reform now holds 47 of the 81 seats on the council. A majority requires 41. The margin is now just six seats. If Reform were to lose six more councillors through defection, expulsion or by-election defeat, Farage’s flagship council would lose its Reform majority entirely.
That context gives the Cliftonville result a weight beyond the individual ward. This was not merely a by-election loss – it was a demonstration that the Greens can take seats directly from Reform, in Reform-held territory, even in Kent.
Reform’s first electoral test on its own turf
The Cliftonville by-election represented something rare: an electoral test on ground Reform had already won. Most by-elections in the run-up to May 7 have been fought on territory held by Labour or the Conservatives. This one was fought on a seat Reform had previously held, in a council Reform controls, in a county Farage personally used as the benchmark for his party’s fitness to govern.
The result – a Green win, a Reform loss, by a clear margin – does not bode well for the party’s performance in the May elections, particularly in wards across London and the south-east where the Greens are most competitive.
The Farage mirage in Kent
The Cliftonville result lands in the same week that Reform’s free energy bills draw was won by “staunch party members,” its leader was heckled in Formby, its polling fell to a one-year low in Scotland, and its crypto funding from a Trump-pardoned billionaire drew fresh scrutiny.
One year ago, Farage stood in Kent and promised a revolution. The DOGE efficiency unit found no waste. Council tax went up. Ten councillors quit or were expelled. A councillor went to jail. The flagship council is now described across the political spectrum as a “horror show.”
And now the Greens have taken a seat directly from them in their own backyard.
As Yates put it: “Twelve years ago Nigel Farage was parading down Cliftonville high street.” Today, it’s green.
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