“I got fed up with politicians in Westminster”

What Steven asked Robbie Lammas, Conservative councillor for Princes Park and former parliamentary special advisor

Robbie Lammas has been the elected Conservative councillor for Princes Park since 2021. Steven met Cllr Lammas at his home, and they spoke about why he is the councillor of Princes Park, why he no longer works in Westminster and why he was campaigning for Trump in the 2024 American election.

Cllr Robbie Lammas

Why are you a councillor for Princes Park?
Pure circumstance. It’s the classic thing of preventing entryism in all local parties, where the up-and-coming youngster is given an unwinnable ward and told, ‘don't worry, you've got many years.’ I did the unwinnable ward, Luton and Wayfield, and really wanted to win. Really wanted to have an opportunity to serve and then unfortunately Tashi (Bhutia, then councillor for Princes Park) sadly passed away and I happened to reside in the ward. I pretty much put my foot down and said “this is my home ward”, and at that point, because I'd worked so hard in the previous election, positioned myself. Colleagues couldn't really prevent me, to be honest.

In the last 2023 local elections, wasn't there an issue with who would be the candidates in the ward?
Yeah, there was an issue with re-selection wars that go on. They're not abnormal. I think because my now ward colleague, Alex Hyne, wanted to be a councillor as well, there was a question mark over selection. We just followed the process essentially.
Some people might not be aware that those decisions are made at ward level rather than at constituency level, with actions decided by who turns up on the night.
Precisely, and when people turn up on a night who are from out of the area and there's a planned hit job against you, it can backfire.
Your ward colleague before Alex was Gloria Opara. She was deselected for the ward.
I guess so. She's not the councillor now, but it's more she wasn't reselected. Alex Hyne beat her in the selection for the ward essentially.
There’s not an automatic right to be reselected.
No, and the argy bargy at the time was over a certain group of people assuming they had an automatic right and the reality of the system.

Why are you not a member of the shadow cabinet on the council?
Because until a couple of weeks ago, I was very busy working in London, working for members of parliament, including at one point as a special advisor. It's just an hour’s thing. There were other things I had to give up. I had to give up being a deputy chair of Chatham and Aylesford Conservatives. It's just hours in the day, essentially.
You did run for the group's leadership, after Alan Jarett, but that didn’t work out.
Well, it went... I was not successful because the vote was split three ways, and I was not successful in garnering the maximum number of votes. Therefore, my focus naturally drifted towards the national and all my efforts were focused in the national way. But you know, these votes are actually very fleeting and the coalition of support around people changes all the time.
Again, tying this back to what we were just saying about the ward, this vote was literally around the Conservative Group on the council. No one else could vote, it was just the councillors who got to make this decision.
It was the post-election elected councillors left who got to make the decision.
And some people that were involved in that are no longer part of the group.
There was a preferential system as well. There were lots of things going on behind that kind of stuff.
It's not done on the first past the post?
No, it's not. It's done in a very strange way and also people vote for different things like instead of voting for the sort of policy direction you want to take the group in, lots of people also voted for their own positions. Some for valid reasons like their past experience or what they can bring to the table. Lots of people voted in different ways for different reasons and some of those people are no longer even part of the group.
This was the vote that resulted in Adrian (Gulvin) becoming the group leader.
Yeah, Adrian became group leader as the caretaker leader. He ran on the ticket of being the caretaker leader and that made sense at the time.

Why do you think the Conservatives did so poorly in the recent by-elections in Medway?
Because of the track record of the Conservatives in national government, the colossal amount of infighting, validating the criticisms of oneself. That was done by certain people in Westminster for their own ends. Also, the state of the country, the colossal cost of energy, the ridiculous prices of groceries in the shops, the state of affairs, for example, immigration. People are justifiably completely fed up. And Reform speaks to people's anger.