“Our principal focus at the moment is being that effective strong opposition”

What Steven asked Cllr George Perfect, the new Conservative Leader of the Opposition on Medway Council

Steven sat down with Cllr George Perfect for a second time, following their previous conversation earlier in the year when George was elected Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group. Things move fast in politics, and now, a few months later, George has been promoted to Leader of the Opposition. They met via Teams to discuss George becoming Leader of the Opposition, the General Election campaign, the social media use, and the local plan.

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before the recent national disorder and before this week’s news about Lauren Edwards MP's tweets, which Cllr Perfect has commented on here.

Cllr George Perfect

Why did you decide to run to be leader of the Medway Conservatives after Cllr Gulvin stood down?
For me, it was about a couple of things. We'd obviously, last year, gone through what was a very difficult election for us. I don't think there's any sort of problem saying that. I think it was a very difficult election. We lost a number of very good colleagues. The campaign was difficult, particularly given the national picture in terms of where the party was polling. It was a difficult election, and it was a difficult result. It was also a seismic election in the sense that we'd had a number of people standing down, including two previous leaders, Rodney Chambers OBE and and Alan Jarrett. We lost a number of colleagues that I think we'd anticipated would be returned. We had the leadership election last year, and Adrian was elected. He asked me to serve in his shadow cabinet as our spokesperson for children's services and education, which I accepted. I've worked very closely with him over the past 12 months in terms of plotting out where you were, do a bit of a review as to where the group was, but also beginning to sketch out what it could look like for us as an opposition, moving towards 2027.
What happened over the course of particularly the beginning of this calendar year was I think a number of members of the group actually liked that vision and were impressed with what I'd done as our spokesperson for children services, and encouraged me to stand as leader, and I would probably have unanimous support from the group if I stood. But for me, it's a longer-term project in terms of rebuilding our group and our party locally ahead of the next set of local elections. I think it's very exciting, and I'm lucky to have a great team.

Is there any part of that plan you're able to share in terms of that route to 2027?
There's always a change when you go from being an administration into being in opposition. I think we've completed that now. We're a good team, we've got a quality shadow cabinet, where we've had a number of people I've moved around this year, which is working really well together. We're meeting very regularly. The next piece of work is around sharpening up some of our communications. You go from running a council when you have the council’s communications machine, driving portfolio holders and everything else. It's a bit of a different role. I think we were a bit slow at the start on that, but we're now there.
We've got a brilliant political assistant supporting us with that. The shadow cabinet members are really leading in their briefs. Then more widely, we'll have a political discussion about what things we want to look for in terms of 2027, in terms of the offer that we'll put to the people of Medway, and indeed driving some of the other changes that that the group want to see around how we might look to run the future of the council. Some of those conversations will sharpen up as we get more towards 2026, but our principal focus at the moment is being that effective strong opposition.

Have you yet to change your work schedule now that you've become a group leader?
Yeah. It's slightly different. Obviously, I'm spending more time as group leader than I was as children’s services spokesperson, but I'd already been spending quite a significant amount of time on the council with Adrian when I was it was in that role. It's slightly heavier in terms of the workload, but there's a circle of brilliant team around me as well. It's never just about one person

How is your working relationship with the Leader of the Council Vince Maple?
On a personal level, I get on with Vince. He's the leader of the council. He's been a council member for a number of years. He's very experienced. He was a very experienced leader of the opposition, actually. One of the longest serving in in the southeast by the time he took the council over. Of course, we have political disagreements and things that I don't see eye to eye with him on. But, on a personal level, we have a working relationship that I would say is appropriate and cordial and good in terms of delivering for the people of Medway.

You became a councillor yourself in 2023. Do you have any working relationship with the previous Conservative leaders of the council?
Yeah, I do. I've been a party member for a significant number of years as well. I was involved as the Youth Council Chair as well before that. I talk to Alan Jarrett on a regular basis. He's been involved in the group for many years, of course. Very highly experienced. I get on well with Rodney. We've got a good working relationship with previous members of the council, and a lot of them still play an active role within our constituency associations, of course, and I have been out on the campaign trail with lots of them and talking to them regularly.

When we last spoke, you confidently said that the group is united. Since then, another member of the group has joined the Independent Group. Do you stand by the statement that the group is united?
The group is united. Look, I chaired a meeting of our group on Monday evening, and everybody is resolutely behind me as the leader. I think Councillor Williams, obviously, is unhappy with things that have taken place within the national party. I'm very disappointed about that. As I said to him privately when he informed me of the decision, I'm very disappointed because the party has just gone through the election, and we're in the rebuilding phase. It's a crucial time for our party, both locally and nationally. The time now is to unite and work together to plot forward that future. He's decided that he wanted to join the Independent Group because he's unhappy with the national government. We're not in government anymore. I think we're in a rebuilding phase. I wish him all the best of luck with that.

No concerns over anyone else going independent or even joining Reform?
Don't believe so at the moment. I don't think so.

Individual members will have their own feelings about how the party nationally moves forward. Do you feel that the party should welcome Nigel Farage?
I think Nigel Farage has said that he wanted to see the destruction of the Conservative Party, so I don't quite see how Nigel Farage could be a member, or if he would even want to be a member, quite frankly, talking with language like that. I mean, that’s a matter for the party board and the leader, but I can't see a circumstance in which that would be acceptable given his previous comments about the destruction of the party. He's been elected to parliament, and Reform has caused significant damage to the Conservative Party. So, I don't see that happening.

Do you have any thoughts on the current contenders who should become the new leader?
I think we've got a number of really good candidates, and a number of them have very good relationships with us here in Medway. We had Dame Priti Patel down a few weeks ago. We've got Tom Tugendhat, who's a very good friend of ours, we are very close to him. And, of course, we've got others. I am attending a meeting tomorrow with Kemi Badenoch, who's our shadow secretary of state for local government. It's difficult for me to comment, but I think it's going to be a good contest. We've got a number of people with varying ideas, which is good. Diversity of thought in the room and having that sort of wider conversation about what the future of the party looks like is important. I'm sure the members will select the right person to lead the party forward.