New Reform-led council will remove Pride and Ukrainian flags

A Reform-run county council will not fly a Pride flag this summer and will remove the Ukrainian flag from the chamber, the new council leader confirmed.

At the beginning of May, Reform swept to a local elections victory in Kent taking 57 of 81 council seats, wiping out a Conservative majority which had stood for almost 30 years.

On Thursday, councillors heard from the new leader of Kent County Council, Linden Kemkaran, at their annual general meeting at County Hall in Maidstone, Kent.

Ms Kemkaran, Kent’s Reform leader, told the chamber her new administration had little time for “special interest groups” or the flags that represent them.

“The Union Jack, the flag of St George and the flag of Kent, they are the identity that we all share and it is that identity that we need to focus on,” she said.

Her words were met with raucous applause and table thumping from the Reform benches, likened to a “political rally” by the council’s opposition leader, Liberal Democrat Antony Hook.

“We are here to unite not divide and that’s why we don’t have much time for special interest groups and flags that represent special interest groups,” added Ms Kemkaran.

The new Kent County Council leader also told the chamber she was looking to create a department of government efficiency (Doge) to root out problems in the council.

Opposition leader Mr Hook voiced fears that the Reform administration would be taking instructions from the national leaders of Reform UK.

Outside the chamber, he said: “It was really shocking to me that in a recent podcast the leader of Reform said that she had to sort of take instructions from Reform’s national chairman.

“That’s the sort of thing we’ve never heard at Kent County Council before. Under different administrations it’s always been clear that policy is made in Kent by county councillors not taking instructions from national parties.”

Concerns were also raised by opposition councillors about the future of environmental initiatives across the county.

Before the meeting, Ms Kemkaran told the PA news agency: “My focus will be on examining every single so-called net zero initiative and seeing whether it does really offer value for money or any benefits for the residents of Kent and if we find that it doesn’t then it will be scrapped.”

The new Reform-led council is yet to announce which committees are to be kept from previous Conservative administrations.

Ms Kemkaran warned against “knee-jerk” reactions in her first speech to the chamber.

“The people of Kent turned out in their thousands to vote for us because they didn’t want the same old people doing the same old things and achieving the same old results,” Ms Kemkaran told PA.

Mr Hook commented on the atmosphere within the chamber.

He said: “Today was really strange, there were constant rounds of applause, there was table thumping. I’ve never seen that in a county council chamber before.

“Reform were acting like they were at a political rally rather than the first meeting of an authority that’s here to do important work.”