In Kent, traditional parties are disarmed in the face of the rise of the far-right in the Kingdom.

Politically, Harry Rayner is a survivor. And if the tone is to be detached, the words of the leader of the conservative opposition in the Kent County Council (KCC), in Maidstone, are quite mournful. "We were heavily beaten in the polls," admits this retiree from a shipping company, from his large office decorated with ship engravings, on Tuesday, September 22nd. He recalls the "shock" of May 2025: following the local elections, his party lost 55 of the 60 seats it held in this stronghold of the south-east of England to the far-right party Reform UK, for the first time in the county, which won 57 out of the 81 seats in the KCC. Sixteen months later, the local far-right is undermined by divisions. Nine elected members have left Nigel Farage's party on the County Council: in February, seven of them, ousted for personal disputes, formed a group called Restore Britain, the movement newly created by Rupert Lowe and supported by Elon Musk, even more radical than Reform UK on the issue of immigration. Another member of Reform UK joined the Tories, and the ninth resigned. A poster for Restore Britain was added to one of the doors – closed – of the labyrinthine KCC building. Requested by Le Monde, several far-right officials did not respond. This new environment appears "totally depressing" in the eyes of Stuart Jeffery, one of the five elected members of the Green Party of the KCC and municipal councillor for the city of Maidstone. "The Reform UK councillors are openly racist, their answers to our questions are always aggressive," assures the councillor. "Their first measures were to declare a symbolic 'state of emergency on the invasion' [of foreigners], to abolish the declaration on 'climate emergency' and to end DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] policy within the council," he lists, visibly affected, Stuart Jeffery. You have 75.54% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.