Reform campaigned on a promise to cut wasteful spending and save taxpayers' money before the local elections
Reform UK’s ‘flagship’ local authority, Kent County Council, is under fire for pushing through plans to hire political assistants, which could cost taxpayers nearly £100,000 a year.
Reform put forward the motion, which passed, on Thursday last week.
There is a projected £60 million gap in Kent County Council’s finances for 2026/27, even with a planned 5% council tax increase.
In addition, Reform was voted in on a pledge to cut wasteful spending and save money for taxpayers, yet are now appointing political assistants.
Councils are allowed a maximum of £49,282 per role under the Local Government Act.
At KCC, only Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats qualify for a political assistant, as they are only two parties with at least 10% of members on the authority.
In July, Reform in Warwickshire were accused of hypocrisy when they voted to spend £150,000 on political assistants.
Not only are there concerns about Reform in Kent spending thousands on political assistants, but around who they have hired as their political assistant.
In Kent, a leaked recording of a Reform councillors’ meeting, seen by the Guardian, shows Maxwell Harrison, Reform’s chief whip on the council, announcing that Michael Hadwen, a former Reform UK head office employee, had been hired as a political assistant.
Hadwen, who was previously Reform’s director of campaigning and training at the party’s head office, has attracted controversy for expressing support for Enoch Powell’s ideas on immigration.
Responding to a tweet by Daniel Hannan, a former Conservative MEP, which said that Powell was wrong about immigration, Hadwen said: “Enoch was right, he was just before the times.”
In April 2018, about a month after Russian agents attempted to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skirpal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Hadwen said “Russia is not my enemy”.
“We should be working with them, and not throwing around threats like a spoilt child,” he added.
The Liberal Democrat group leader, Antony Hook, accused Reform of “wanting to spend public money on a political apparatchik to tell them what to do”.
He said: “Kent county council is in a worsening financial state under Reform with the projected overspend now at £46m and rising.
“The person mentioned appears to have a record of concerning views such as endorsing the racist Enoch Powell who spoke against the idea of people of different races living happily together in Britain. The person named has evidently also said we should work with Russia.”
Hook has not yet ruled out the Lib Dems appointing a political assistant themselves.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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