Breaking: Labour’s Shameful Racist Plan To Win East Thanet Seat

Will Thanet Labour stop at nothing to secure victory for their general election candidate Polly Billington in the new parliamentary seat of East Thanet?  It would appear not.

To its shame this supposedly progressive party is abusing its power at the council to deliberately manipulate vile  anti- Gypsy, Roma &  Traveller  (GRT) racism in a way which they hope  will push Billington over the winning line in the forthcoming general election.

My allegation is borne out by recent events beginning with a meeting of TDCs  Overview and Scrutiny  Panel (OSP)  in January  2024. At this meeting councillors were asked to support a  report, approved by Labour’s housing boss Cllr Helen Whitehead,  which recommended there to be a public consultation about using  council owned land at Shottendane Road Garlinge for a permanent GRT site.

The report stated  that  the Shottendane Road site would not be large enough to meet the demand  for permanent and temporary  GRT sites in Thanet and that  several other sites across the district will be needed. Yet mysteriously the report failed to  identify any other potential GRT sites apart from that at Shottendane Road.

Like me,  councillors at the OSP meeting were  surprised by the lack of information about any additional land  which could be used for the much needed GRT sites.  So much so that  the minutes of the meeting record that:-

“Members agreed that the Council hold-off consultation until the Council had looked at all its holdings to identify more suitable sites and that would then be followed by a full and transparent public consultation”.

Sadly,  TDC’s constitution classifies decisions of the OSP as being “ advisory” and not binding, so when the same report was discussed  the following week by  TDCs all powerful Labour controlled Cabinet, it was decided to ignore the OSP’s proposal  and proceed with the original recommendation to consult on the Shottendane Road site only.

Interestingly, the OSP’s  proposal  for a wider site options review was put forward by the  experienced and well-respected Labour Councillor David Green and it secured unanimous cross-party  support from all OSP members.

This begs the question why Labour’s Chair of the Cabinet, Rick

Everitt and his five handpicked Labour Cabinet  appointees; councillors Whitehead, Albon, Duckworth, Keen and Yates,  all chose to  humiliatingly slap  down what was an  eminently  sensible, proposal put forward by a Labour Party colleague which had the support of councillors from all parties?

Such an action  is vanishingly  rare and indicates that Cabinet boss  Everitt,  and his five handpicked Labour stooges  had a plan of their own which would have been scuppered had Cllr Green’s proposal been accepted instead. What this  plan might be is where things begin to get decidedly murky, so please bear with me.

Let’s go back in history to February 2023 when Polly Billington was selected to be Labour’s  East Thanet parliamentary candidate. Shortly after her selection the Court of Appeal heavily criticized TDC for serving  “draconian” and unlawful eviction notices on members of the GRT community who were living at the Port of Ramsgate.

So serious was the council’s misconduct in serving the unlawful eviction notices and so appalling was its previous history of persecuting and hounding the GRT community, rather than providing it with much  needed support,  that higher powers were beginning to rightly suspect that  TDC was institutionally racist.

Such concerns,  if not quickly and decisively  addressed could, I was told by a source, easily have led to an  independent investigation of TDC  being launched by  the Equality and Human Rights Commission.   

Hot on the heels of the highly damaging  2022 bullying investigation another controversial probe, especially on a sensitive issue such as racism,  would almost certainly have resulted  in Government appointees taking over the running of TDC and lots of well rewarded  officers and politicians  losing their posts and reputations.

Getting the council’s house in order following such dire warnings became the responsibility of Labour councillors who, just days after the Court of Appeal decision was published, took control of the council after winning 29 seats in the May 2023 elections.

Throughout 2023 and continuing to this day opinion poll after opinion poll have  put Labour massively in front  of the Tories should there be a general election. Some have even predicted a Tony Blair style landslide for Labour.

Whilst Labour’s fortunes  improved, the electoral commission decided to merge  Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate into a new  parliamentary constituency called  East Thanet. Most election experts agreed that the social composition of  this new constituency made it a natural Labour seat.

Labour’s consistently good opinion polling and the creation of new Labour leaning constituency almost certainly led  Billington and her team to believe that  East Thanet would no longer be a close contest, but  a certain win for her and Labour.

However, to guarantee a  win Billington and her inner-circle, which is said to include council leader Rick Everitt, are doing everything they can  to make certain  that  her campaign runs smoothly,  without any mishaps or  controversy which might lose voter support.

One such controversy would be for the  Labour controlled council to embark upon a Thanet wide identification of, and consultation about, possible  GRT sites, in the run up to a general election.

Such a process would almost certainly bring forward sites in Billington’s  constituency which  in her and her team’s  eyes would cause a public outcry which might  pose  a serious threat to  what Billington and her team  believed to be an “in the bag” election victory.

This is why I believe  that the putting forward of a single option for a GRT site at Shottendane Road and nowhere else was deliberately pushed through by Everitt and his Labour Cabinet colleagues, because it  served to silence the bigoted racists who always appear when plans  to develop a GRT site are mentioned  and in so doing cleared the road  to a controversy free election campaign which would help to secure Billington’s election victory.

Focusing on Shottendane Road presents no risk to Billington. The site is located in what most people believe to be  the new, rock solid Tory constituency,  of Herne Bay and Sandwich which the Labour Party have written off as a no  hope of winning seat.

It will also give the misleading impression that the council is beginning to deal  with  allegations of its institutional racism against the GRT community, by putting forward a possible site even though it is acknowledged to be too small and insufficient to meet the estimated need.

But here’s the rub,  by pushing through a plan which Everitt

and his Cabinet colleagues, probably believe to have been an exemplar of cleverness, cunning, and smartness, they have in fact caused considerable damage and may also have acted illegally and abused their powers as elected councillors in an unfair and racist way. Here’s why.

The resolution of  the longstanding,  council-wide,  GRT site provision problem has been delayed until,  at the very least, the holding of the general election, possibly even longer.The adoption of Councillor Green’s proposal could have  led to a much quicker review.

It could be argued that this decision was therefore direct discrimination against the GRT community by Everitt and his Cabinet colleagues which is contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

The prime agricultural land  which the Council and its leader Cllr Everitt  had publicly  vowed to protect,  is now at risk of being  built on when a Thanet-wide review of potential GRT sites, as Councillor Green proposed, would almost certainly have brought forward several  suitable brownfield sites.

As serious and as damaging as  these allegations are, if they are right,  which I believe them to be,  then TDCs  most senior Labour  councillors have used their elected positions to manipulate or influence council decisions in order to provide Labour parliamentary candidate Billington with an unfair and  distinct advantage in the forthcoming general election.

Not only would such actions be likely to  amount to misconduct in public office,  but also a possible breach of election law as well.  All of which are criminal offences which if proven  could lead to  a long, well deserved,  period of incarceration.

But what about Billington? She is a longstanding, ambitious, wannabe Labour MP who has tried and failed before to secure a parliamentary seat. Having now been selected  as a candidate in a seat which appears to be a Labour certainty, she will not  want to leave things to chance.

This  means that  she is highly likely to be personally and deeply involved in the detailed planning of her campaign which in my opinion makes it likely that candidate Billington  may have had some knowledge of,  and perhaps  even supported, the plans executed by Everitt and his Cabinet  if these plans were indeed devised and implemented with the purpose of avoiding  controversy during her election campaign.

But as they say ambition always has victims, In this case it’s the GRT community, one of the most discriminated against groups in the UK.

Their longstanding need for good humanitarian and sufficient sites in Thanet,  rather than continued unlawful and aggressive persecution by the council has been delayed yet again in order, I believe,  to satisfy the burning personal ambition of a single,  reasonably well off,  and highly privileged person. Morally or ethically this cannot be right.

As my record shows I am a supporter of human rights and an opponent of discrimination in all its evil forms. If there is any justice the council must now nullify the Cabinet ‘s decision on Shottendane Road and conduct, without delay,  and open a transparent review of all sites, particularly brown field sites, which could meet the need for GRT sites right across Thanet.

Furthermore it's my opinion that Council Leader  Everitt and his Cabinet colleagues, on the basis of the information I have provided, are likely to have acted in a racist way and biased way are therefore not fit for public office.

If East Thanet Labour Parliamentary candidate Polly Billingtion had  any knowledge of Everitt and his Cabinet colleagues actions in relation to Shottendane Road and their purpose, which I honestly believe to be possible, then she too is, in my opinion  not fit for public office.

Finally, I note that the leader of the Thanet Independent Group of councillors, John Worrow,  appears  to have been the subject of  Standards complaints from councillors Rick Everitt and Helen Whitehead about the comments he has made concerning the land the land at the Shottendane Road.

This apparent bullying of Councillor Worrow by Everitt and Whitehead and their weaponisoing of Standard system to silence their critics, serves to strengthen my belief that that they have been up to no good.

I will finish be saying, that if a fair and transparent review of land for GRT sites is carried out by the council, without the involvement of Everitt and his Cabinet,  but by a cross party group of councillors, residents and member of the of the GRT community then I am certain that agricultural land will not be affected allowing farmer Tapp to keep on farming and the GRT community to have suffcient modern sites  with the best facilities, to meet their needs.

Call out if any Labour Party members or disgrutled council officers who have a knowledge of the Cabinet's Shottendane Road decison please contact me on 07866588766 or email ianddriver@yahoo.co.uk The strictest confidence is guaranteed.