Reform UK cabinet member says he was sacked in ‘ambush’ — hours after meeting Farage

A Cabinet member in a council run by Reform UK accused colleagues of sacking him in an “ambush” hours after national leader Nigel Farage came to visit.

Bill Barrett lasted less than two months overseeing transport on Kent County Council, where Farage’s right-wing populist party won 57 out of 81 seats at May’s local elections.

Farage visited the council on Monday and gave an interview saying Kent’s £98 million-a-year budget for home-to-school transport was “beyond belief.”

Later that day, council leader Linden Kemkaran issued a statement saying she had “made changes to my Cabinet team” and Barrett had left his role. 

Her chief whip Maxwell Harrison told KentOnline on Monday: “Bill wasn’t sacked. He agreed to leave — it was an agreement. Bill was doing a good job and there was no bad blood.”

Speaking to POLITICO Wednesday, however, Barrett said that story was “completely false.”

He added: “It’s a complete lie. There was no mutual arrangement that we left. I walked into an office basically to an ambush, where they basically spent 50 minutes saying how shit I was.” 

‘I walked in to an ambush’

Farage met members of Kent’s Cabinet on Monday morning, a meeting in which Barrett spoke at length about transport and potholes on the county’s roads. “He walked over to me, shook my hand, and he smiled, and he said, well done,” said Barrett of Farage.

Barrett said after lunch he went to a meeting with Kemkaran to find her deputy Brian Collins and Harrison also in the room. He said Collins questioned him about why he was not visiting highways inspectors in person to examine their work.

Barrett also said that Kemkaran gave him one month to find cuts from a dossier on the highways department which officials had drawn up in recent weeks.

Barrett, who accused his senior colleagues of being “conniving” and running a “toxic environment,” said he eventually walked out of the meeting after being warned that if he left, he would be gone.

Barrett added: “My opinion is 100 percent that I’ve been sacked. I did not resign in paper, email or any other form. I walked out of her office. They were abusing me and bullying me.” He made no suggestion that Farage was responsible for his sacking.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage attends a meeting alongside the Head of Kent County Council, Linden Kemkaran, during his visit to the Reform UK group at Kent at Kent County Council at County Hall, Maidstone. | Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images

‘Disappointing’

Kemkaran pushed back at Barrett’s criticism, saying in a statement Wednesday evening: “Naturally it’s always slightly disappointing when a colleague who’s been given every chance to step up and improve their performance declines the opportunity and instead walks out of a meeting, knowing that it would mean they’d lose their position.”

The council leader added: “We have a new cabinet member for highways and transport firmly in place and as far as we are concerned it’s business as usual, serving the people of Kent.

“What I’m not going to do is give a running commentary on the Members’ positions here at KCC. We’re simply getting on with the job.”

The incident shines a spotlight on Reform’s push to cut home-to-school transport costs, many of which are spent on children with special educational needs.

More broadly, it comes as Reform gets to grips with running 10 councils in England where it gained overall control in the May local elections. Farage’s nascent party has only four MPs — a fifth, James McMurdock, gave up the whip this week after seeking legal advice about business loans during the COVID pandemic — but is leading U.K. national opinion polls.

Barrett said he has filed a formal complaint to Reform’s National Chairman David Bull and to Kent County Council Chief Executive Amanda Beer.