A protest in search of a crowd
Plus Medway Council meeting comes to an abrupt end, the return of Rehman, news in brief, and more
The far right marched on Rochester over the weekend, only to be met by considerably more counter-protestors. We get into the situation on the ground below. Further down, we have coverage from last week’s full Medway Council meeting, which ended abruptly, a welcome return of Rehman Chishti to this organ, news in brief, and more.
A protest in search of a crowd
It began quietly. Just after lunchtime on Saturday, a small group gathered by the coach station in Rochester, carrying purple UKIP placards and English and Union flags. There were so few of them that for a while it wasn’t clear if the event was actually happening. No sign of party leader Nick Tenconi, no crowd, no chants. Just organiser Roger Hogg, councillor Amelia Randall, a handful of adults, and a few children swaddled in flags.
They set off down Corporation Street and onto the High Street, Hogg shouting into a megaphone about patriotism and immigration while Randall held a ‘Join UKIP’ sign. Onlookers stopped to watch, some laughing, some heckling. It was less a march than a slow shuffle through a town that didn’t seem to notice or care.
Ahead, the counter-protest was already waiting near Northgate. Around 150 people had filled the High Street under banners reading ‘Refugees Welcome’ and ‘Unity Over Fascism – As We All Argue, The 1% Profit.’ A person in an inflatable frog suit wobbled through the crowd, a live band played banjo and bodhrán, the mood was noisy but calm.
“This is a show of strength by the community that we’re not going to tolerate those that seek to divide us in Rochester,” said Cllr Alex Paterson, Labour’s cabinet member for community safety and ward councillor for Rochester West and Borstal. “We have seen them manage to gather laughable numbers elsewhere in Kent, and I hope that’s the case again today. But what’s more important is the community comes together to reassure the general public that there are more of us than there are of these individuals.”
He added that the council had been in close contact with Kent Police throughout the week. “Everyone who is staffing this event from a Kent Police perspective is public order trained, but they are not here in riot gear. We don’t expect trouble. There is an opportunity for people to express their views peacefully, and I’m confident that that’s what’s going to happen.”
Medway Council leader Vince Maple said the scene felt familiar. “Medway is not a place for racism and fascism,” he said. “From what we’ve seen from UKIP in recent weeks, with their leader giving Nazi salutes, it’s important to send a strong, united message that that is not the Medway of 2025, or the Medway of 2014, when Britain First tried this.” Ten years on, the far right had returned to the same street and met much the same result.
As the marchers came into view, police officers formed a line to separate the two sides. Counter-protesters booed and jeered. Councillor Satinder Shokar stood in the middle of the road, directly in the path of the march. One protester pointedly shouted at him that these were “not your streets.” Officers stepped in quickly, guiding Cllr Shokar aside so the protestors could continue their march up the High Street.
The counter-protest had been organised by the Kent Anti-Racism Network under the banner ‘Rochester Says No to UKIP,’ with support from trade unions, the Green Party, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Its chants and music filled the High Street for most of the day, outnumbering the march several times over. “There are more people prepared to stand up to racism than protest in favour of it,” said John Castle from the Liberal Democrats.
Green campaigner Trish Marchant described the UKIP presence as “vintage.” “Hopefully they’ll have a little chat with themselves, we’ll wave at them like we did in 2014, and they’ll go away again,” she said.
Kent Police kept a visible but restrained presence. Two minor incidents involved a teenager filming counter-protestors who described himself as ‘independent media.’ After repeatedly filming and provoking Cllr Paterson after being told he wouldn’t talk, the councillor pushed the camera aside. The teenager accused him of assault, police intervened, but the matter ended with no further action. The same teenager later argued with another counter-protester. Neither incident nor anything else on the day led to arrests.
From Northgate, the UKIP group walked in the direction of Rochester Bridge en route to their scheduled end location at Rochester Cathedral. As they passed the Royal Crown, a woman sitting outside raised a hand and gestured ‘wankers.’ No one in the march replied. A young boy wrapped in a flag beside his father was in tears by the time they reached the gates of Rochester Castle, where police directed them given counter-protestors occupied the area outside the cathedral.
Inside the railings of Rochester Castle Gardens, the protest group looked even smaller. The group numbered barely a dozen. Randall addressed them through a small speaker. “I know there’s not many people here,” she said, before speaking about poverty in Kent and the need to “prioritise British citizens.” Around ten people listened, five filming her on their phones. Officers stood nearby. Counter-protestors and councillors, including those from Medway’s administration, were kept outside the gates.
Outside the gardens, the counter-protest carried on with chants. The band that had played earlier said their performance was about “spreading a unity message” and “making a bit of a joyful display.”
Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan said, “I’m here because I think it’s right that we stand up to fascism and racism in our society. When people come down and they want to create unrest, they want to cause trouble, and they want to break our communities apart, I’m just not going to stand for it.”
Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards said the protest showed how “people from outside our area are coming with very strong far-right views, stoking division.” “My version of British patriotism is one of tolerance and inclusivity and diversity,” she said. “Those are the kind of values that I think we have here in Rochester and Strood.”
By mid-afternoon, the speeches in the castle gardens were over. The protesters were escorted out. Some were later seen at Wetherspoons. The counter-protest, which had held its position outside the cathedral throughout, slowly dispersed.
There had been tension, but no violence, and for most of the day the loudest sound in Rochester was the chants being led by counter-protestors with a megaphone. Shoppers continued to move through the High Street, occasionally stopping to watch before carrying on.
If the purpose had been to signal a UKIP revival, the reality looked different. Even by the standards of small English nationalist demonstrations, the turnout was meagre. Ten people had marched under a party banner, trailed by a few flags and a police escort. The largest presence of the day belonged to those who came to oppose them.
A second protest, unrelated to Saturday’s march, is already being organised in Medway for 1 November. It is expected to be larger, led by the group behind many of the flags appearing around Medway and supported by groups that have recently marched in Canterbury and Faversham.
Whether that march proves larger or not, Saturday offered a preview of what to expect from both sides of the police cordon.
Business as usual, until it wasn’t
Medway Council’s full meeting last week was shaping up to be one of the livelier ones this year until proceedings were halted abruptly when Deputy Mayor Wayne Spring suffered a medical incident during debate, leading to paramedics attending and taking him to hospital.
In a statement the following day, Conservative Group leader George Perfect said Cllr Spring was “recovering at home with his family” and thanked officers, members and the public for their support. The meeting was adjourned early, with only one urgent item, a routine approval on school places, nodded through before councillors left the chamber.
It was an abrupt end to what had already been a packed night: the first full council since Cllr Robbie Lammas defected from the Conservatives to Reform.
If there was any doubt that Reform intended to make its presence felt, it disappeared quickly. Their Rochester and Strood chair, William Burvill, opened public questions with a provocative query for Labour leader Vince Maple, asking whether he believed the 88,997 Medway residents who voted Leave were “racists, fascists, or people who hate their own country.”
It was, Maple noted dryly, “the second time this week” he’d been asked the question, before replying with a flat “no, because it isn’t true.” He then reeled off the growing list of Reform councillors elsewhere in Kent who have been suspended, expelled or charged over various controversies. If the meeting had occurred a few days later, he’d have had several more names from Kent to add to his list.
The first motion of the night saw Conservative councillor Habib Tejan call on the council to show “financial discipline” and warned against “using the credit card to pay for groceries.” He described the situation as a “moment of reckoning,” accusing the Labour administration of continuing to borrow with “no path to financial independence.”
There was audible laughter from Labour benches. Cllr Maple dismissed the motion as being like “a shoplifter demanding that CCTV be installed,” blaming years of Conservative mismanagement for the current debt crisis.
Cllr Teresa Murray, delayed briefly by a computer failure and a moment of old-school sexism when the Mayor referred to her as “Mrs Murray,” said she would like to believe the motion was sincere, “but given the half-truths and wrong information, I won’t be voting for it.”
Cllr Michael Pearce of the Independent Group backed the motion, citing “waste” on red routes, the council’s reorganisation study and the loss of free swimming. Cllr Andrew Lawrence called the current administration “vain” and insisted Medway was left with “enough money” when the Tories lost power.
Then came the newly Reform Cllr Lammas, who pledged his group’s support for “sensible economic policies” while claiming Reform at Kent County Council had saved money by scrapping the climate emergency, allowing quotes from the “cheapest provider” rather than the “wokest quota,” to loud laughter.
Given Labour holding an overall majority in the chamber, the motion didn’t get very far.
Next up, Reform’s Cllr David Finch proposed restricting HMOs, calling for an “enforcement-first” approach to stop clusters forming in single neighbourhoods. Labour’s Louwella Prenter countered with an amendment noting work was already underway, saying the administration “acts on evidence, not populist one-liners.”
Cllr Simon Curry reminded the chamber that Labour “don’t need Reform to tell us what to do,” while taking a moment to kick Nigel Farage. The Conservatives supported the amendment, though Cllr Lawrence worried it was “a little bit light.”
Cllr Mandaracas for Labour added that HMOs play a role, but their concentration “creates large transient neighbourhoods that undermine communities.”
The amendment passed almost unanimously and became the substantive motion.
The final motion to be debated before the meeting came from Cllr Maple, calling for the return of international rail services through Kent.
He noted rare cross-party consensus on the issue. Train driver Cllr Mark Prenter seconded, quipping that “it’s unusual for a train driver to want extra stops,” and argued every £1 invested would return £2.50 to the local economy.
Cllr Lammas proposed a near-identical amendment praising Kent County Council, which he himself described as “barely worth the paper it’s printed on.” The room erupted in laughter, with Cllr Perfect agreeing it was “pointless.” After some off-topic meandering about tax and flags, the amendment was defeated 49 to 6. Maple’s original motion passed unanimously.
By the time the Leader’s Report began, the chamber had settled into familiar rhythms. Cllr Maple reeling off civic visits and events; Cllr Perfect denouncing the £105,000 “vanity project” of local government reorganisation, Cllr Finch welcoming Lammas to Reform and condemning the attack on Labour’s local office; and Cllr Chrissy Stamp drawing rare cross-party applause for an emotional contribution on suicide prevention.
Discussion then turned to plans for a new council-run care home, described by Cllr Murray as a “bold step” and, in a surprisingly Trumpian flourish, “big and beautiful.” Moments later, the meeting stopped suddenly as Cllr Spring fell ill.
Thankfully, there is already an extraordinary Medway Council meeting on the schedule for next month to discuss local government reorganisation, so the remaining items will roll over to that rather than have to wait for the January meeting.
You can watch last week’s Medway Council meeting below:
Ordinary man opens café
What do you do when you’ve been the MP for an area for 14 years and get voted out of office? Carrying on acting as if you’re the MP, of course.
We’re thrilled to welcome back former Local Authority main character Rehman Chishti, who, 15 months after being kicked out by the residents of Gillingham and Rainham, is still doing all the kinds of things you’d expect an actual MP to be doing.
Last week, Chishti cut the ribbon at the new branch of Bakers + Baristas at Chatham Dockside, despite being effectively a random man on the street.
His social media shows something of the trend, particularly on his questionably named ‘rehmanchishtimp’ account on Instagram. Given it’s incredibly easy to change your username on the platform, keeping the MP part of the handle is somewhat disingenuous, even if he does sneak in the word ‘former’ to his bio, amongst all of his other roles.
Chishti is continuing to keep up the MP cosplay on social media, visiting parliament, attending local events, posing for photos with residents in the street, running Conservative campaigns with no sign of Conservative branding, and er, recording videos of himself speaking in parliament off the TV.
Still, it’s good to see him keeping busy, and it would appear that he’s angling for a return to parliament at the next General Election. Electoral Calculus currently gives him a 9% chance of pulling it off…
In brief
➡️ The Daily Mail have visited Reform Road in Luton to find out if residents there might vote for the party just because of the street's name.
🚧 MCH House, the flagship building of Medway Community Healthcare, will close for seven weeks starting this Saturday to allow air conditioning work to be completed. Patients must visit other service locations across Medway during the work period.
🗣️ A licensing hearing will decide on Thursday (23 Oct) whether to grant a licence to sell alcohol to Tesco for a new Express store in Lordswood.
🍕 Pizza Hut at Chatham Dockside will close after the restaurant business collapsed, leading to only half of its outlets surviving a rescue deal.
More Authority
For our weekend interview, we sat down with David Cramer Smith, the author of Medway: A Novel. They discuss growing up in Medway, moving away, a possible sequel, mushrooms, and much more.
Footnotes
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The saddest thing was the flag-draped child in tears. Taking your child out to spread hatred... Thanks for this report, and glad the counter-protesters outnumbered the marchers.
Why has Ed stopped telling us the music he has been listening to? I enjoyed that - and picked up a few good leads!!