3 hours ago
7
John Harris’s visit to Kent exposed the contrast between aspirational new housing and the plight of asylum seekers living a frugal life in disused barracks (On a trip to Kent, I saw how politics is being shaped by the west’s growing hostility to outsiders, 28 September).
The article suggests that politics is being reshaped by hostility to outsiders, but does not address how this is being deliberately driven by the Reform UK-led council.
At Kent county council, very little is happening to address the inequality and poor public services witnessed by Harris, which makes it easy for Reform to blame immigration.
Over the border in Medway, we hear much about what Kent county council is not going to do while it dismantles the hard work of council officers under the guise of “saving money”, with turbocharged rhetoric in praise of Reform’s hateful policy ideas that disregard the ravages of austerity, which has left all councils with no money to save.
In neighbouring Medway council, we have the unenviable task of trying to maintain a working partnership with Kent on the issues that actually matter – such as improving health services and managing huge demand for adult social care and special educational needs – with inexperienced politicians whose behaviour is unpredictable and who, after six months in power, have achieved little more than a catalogue of moaning and empty threats.
I went to the Faversham protest last month to defend the rights of children seeking asylum, where supporters outnumbered the ragged crew wrapped in flags shouting insults and abuse, and allowing a 10-year-old with a drum to front their protest.
The poverty and social exclusion that breeds contempt for others has been permitted as a consequence of austerity and is now being used by Reform to create division. But rather than pandering to racism, we should face up to our problems, roll up our sleeves and recapture the determination and fairness that has made Britain great before and will again.
Cllr Teresa Murray
Deputy leader of Medway council
I read John Harris’s account of his visit to Folkestone while I was on a family get-together near the seaside town. I noticed that the local parish council’s minutes were pinned on a nearby noticeboard and reported that when local council workers had tried to take down flags from lamp-posts and remove the red and white crosses painted on council property, they had been abused and threatened, and had to withdraw for their own safety.
Some members of my family have lived in Folkestone for decades and watched the gradual degradation of the quality of their day-to-day life, characterised by increasing street begging and rough sleepers, the deterioration of the town centre and difficulty in accessing local essential services such as health and housing.
They live with a general sense of despair and unease, as do many people in towns across England. For reasons of maintaining our own social cohesion, my family have learned to avoid discussing politics, but I am sure that, as avid readers of the Daily Mail, several of them would have voted for Reform UK in the local election.
The strident rabble-rousing voices of Nigel Farage and his henchmen will only begin to evaporate when people can see that Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Shabana Mahmood and the rest of the Labour leadership have made significant and perceptible improvements to those essential services and to the communities in which people live.
Peter Riddle
Wirksworth, Derbyshire
John Harris expresses a sadness that many of us share as the attitudes of many in Kent turn increasingly nationalist, and as we begin to see the effects of Reform UK at a county level, with such absurdities as climate change denial substituting for real policy. But some flags in Faversham and Folkestone are not all of Kent.
Surprisingly, perhaps, Tunbridge Wells is now represented by Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat, and a once “true blue” borough is now majority Lib Dem. I was, for several years, a volunteer for Kent Kindness, a charity providing language teaching to young asylum seekers in two centres in Kent. We did a great job and had lots of local support. Sadly, our services have now been cancelled by Kent county council.
We need to understand, but also challenge, the falsehoods that are becoming all too dominant – and that isn’t by trying to out-Reform Reform.
Paul Kane
Goudhurst, Kent
