Documents released yesterday, following a freedom of information request to Thanet District Council (TDC), reveal that Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for the Sandwich and Herne Bay constituency, Helen Whitehead, branded voters living there as being unpleasant and racist.
These offensive comments were made by Whithead earlier this year in a series of emails relating to her proposals, as TDC’s Cabinet member for housing, to build hundreds homes and a much needed travellers site on council owned farmland in the Sandwich and Herne Bay constituency which she hopes to win from the incumbent Tory MP Sir Roger Gale.
Her proposals breached TDC’s policy to protect farmland and many backbench councillors from across the political divide pleaded with her to search for other non-agricultural land of which, according to the Council’s register of brownfield (previously developed) land, there is plenty.
Residents living in the area of the proposed development
including nearby Garlinge, Westgate, and Birchington who are already facing the loss of hundreds of hectares of farmland to housing, took to social media to condemn Whitehead’s plans, and she quickly became known amongst voters as the “candidate for concrete fields”
In emails to senior council officials dated 12 January 2024 Whithead said:-
I'm happy as long as I can speak, as if we do have a large number of attendees I think it is important, especially considering the level of racism in some online discourse
There has been a large amount of online unpleasantness and racism relating to this proposal, and morally I am not going to be able to not be present to try and tackle that.
Anyone who followed the social media debate about this controversial matter, including myself, will know that Whitehead’s description of it is a dishonest distortion of reality. The truth is there was little, if any, online racism towards the traveller community.
But, there was much well deserved and legitimate criticism of Whithead’s proposals which despite the widespread objections from councillors and residents were forced though by the all-powerful Labour controlled Cabinet of which she is a member.
As often happens with self-absorbed egoists, who believe that they are always right, Whitehead has tried to discredit and undermine her critics by falsely labelling them as being unpleasant and racist. A low down, dirty, and unethical trick that only the worst kind of politician would stoop to
Sadly, council officers failed to challenge Whithead’s unfounded assertion of widespread racism and even discussed the employment of extra security guards at the OSP meeting, presumably to protect her from baying mobs of outraged citizens from Garlinge, Westgate, and Birchington.
I have previously exposed Whitehead’s environmental promises to the voters of Sandwich and Herne Bay to be duplicitous and less than truthful, but this latest revelation stoops to a new and disgusting low which shows utter contempt to the electorate
In last night’s BBC election debate Labour Leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said he “puts people before party” and will suspend without hesitancy any parliamentary candidate who fails to demonstrate the highest ethical standards.
I wonder if his get tough policy will extend to the Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate for Sandwich and Herne Bay, Helen Whithead, who has described the voters in the constituency she hopes to win as unpleasant and racist.
Surely this cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged and surely Whitehead must be disowned as a Labour candidate as quickly as possible.
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