Why a former Medway Conservative is building a party of his own

Why a former Medway Conservative is building a party of his own

In Starbucks at Chatham Dockside, Andrew Lawrence is explaining why Medway needs another political party.

The Hempstead and Wigmore councillor left the Conservatives a few hours before our conversation, and is now launching Medway First, a locally controlled party which he intends to lead into the Medway Council elections next May.

Medway First is Lawrence’s answer to what comes next. He presents it as something substantial, with its own constitution, branding, candidate process and developing manifesto.

“We’re not a group of independents,” he says. “We will be a properly constituted party.”

Lawrence wants Medway First to recruit across the area and be run entirely by people who live here. Its principal selling point is that it will be free to set its own priorities without reporting to a national headquarters or reproducing policies decided elsewhere.

The party was initially being developed for a different election.

Medway had been due to join Dartford and Gravesham in a new North Kent authority, with its first councillors elected in May 2027, a future Local Authority examined back in July. Local government reorganisation helped shape Lawrence’s plans and the party’s emphasis on protecting Medway’s identity.

On Monday, however, the government paused and placed under review the reorganisation of Kent and Medway following updated legal advice. It confirmed that elections in May 2027 will instead take place using the existing council boundaries.

Medway voters will therefore elect a new Medway Council next year, rather than a shadow North Kent authority. Lawrence says Medway First will contest those elections and that the change does not undermine the party's case.

“I still think the founding principles of what I want to achieve with Medway First stand,” he says. “Looking at how Medway is run, how we spend our money, and what we are trying to achieve here in Medway.”

The Medway Conservatives said Lawrence informed the party and council group of his departure on Monday morning.

A spokesperson for the Medway Conservative Group said: “This morning Cllr Andrew Lawrence informed the Conservative Party of his decision to leave the Party and the Conservative Group at Medway Council.”

“Cllr Lawrence no longer holds the Conservative whip, and accordingly the Leader of Medway Conservatives terminated his Shadow Cabinet appointment this morning.”

“The Leader of Medway Conservatives will make a further statement at the appropriate time.”

Lawrence was elected to Medway Council in 2023, after serving two terms as a councillor in Lewisham during the 1990s. An insurance broker and chair of a primary school academy trust, he moved to Medway in 2000 and has lived in Hempstead since 2007.

His separation from the local Conservative organisation has been developing for some time. On his personal website, Lawrence continued to describe himself as a lifelong Conservative while accusing the Gillingham and Rainham association of becoming “toxic”. He published a lengthy account entitled “A Culture of Fear”, in which he wrote that “there is a culture of fear in the Association” and put much of the blame at the feet of former Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti.

The immediate starting point for Medway First was Lawrence’s failure to secure reselection in Hempstead and Wigmore.

“This process started when I was deselected,” he says.

Lawrence appealed against that decision but concluded the constituency association would retain control over individual candidate selections. He was left to decide whether to continue seeking a Conservative candidacy, stand as an independent or establish something new.

His eventual choice was the most ambitious of the three.

Lawrence insists Medway First is not an act of retaliation. If revenge were the objective, he says, he could simply have stood as an independent in Hempstead and Wigmore, divided the Conservative vote and potentially allowed Reform to win.

“My view is that I’ve got a higher set of principles and a bigger vision for Medway, and that requires a proper party network,” he says.

Asked whether Medway First would exist had he been reselected, Lawrence does not give a direct answer. He says he had hoped the ideas he was developing might form the basis of a future Conservative manifesto, but concluded that the party did not have the right answers for Medway.

He also sees an electoral opportunity. The Conservatives are under pressure from Reform, while the growth of four-party politics creates more room for a smaller local party to gain influence.

Although Medway First is only now being launched publicly, Lawrence says he began putting the project together in May. The domain was registered in June, his residents’ survey followed in July, and by August the website and manifesto were being developed.

Throughout that period, Lawrence remained a Conservative councillor and served as the group’s shadow cabinet member for regeneration, community and housing at Medway Council.

He says he has written the party’s constitution, established a candidate application process and prepared a set of principles to which prospective candidates will be expected to subscribe.

For the moment, Medway First is not registered as a political party. Nobody else is currently involved, no candidates have been confirmed, and an application has not been submitted to the Electoral Commission.

Lawrence expects to apply for registration in October or November. He intends to complete the process in time for the party’s name and logo to appear on ballot papers next May.

“We won’t have any central office or party HQ that we’ll be reporting to,” he says. “It will be a Medway-based party that will recruit from within Medway and be run by Medway residents.”

He is funding the project himself and expects to spend around £10,000 getting it to the election. That will include paid leaflet delivery and digital campaigning rather than relying principally on the traditional association model.

“We’re not going to have loads of 70-year-olds trudging the streets,” he says.

Lawrence says candidates will not need previous political experience, but should be able to demonstrate what they have contributed through family life, business, public service or their community.

“I’m less worried about diversity, equity and inclusion,” he says. “I’m more worried about you as an individual, what you bring.”

Finding enough of those individuals will be the first test. Medway’s 59 councillors represent 24 wards, with all seats contested together. A campaign across the whole area would require Lawrence to recruit and vet dozens of candidates within the next eight months, preferably with people living in or near the wards where they stand.