Kent Reforms against motion against VAWG. And attracts, thank goodness, opposition.

[Treaclewell]

https://nextdoor.co.uk/p/BNFHycjyrhXM?view=detail

I've only seen this on local social media.

Sorry, I’m not a nextdoor member. Looks pretty awful. Kent is the canary in the coalmine for Reform governance.

Do you have a copy of the letter or details of what was said?

Can’t see it without signing up, which I don’t want to do. You need to tell us what this is all about.

Have C and P including comments - a bit messy I'm afraid.

Domestic abuse charities have written to the leader of Kent County Council with serious concerns regarding falsehoods and bigotry expressed by a number of councillors while debating a motion concerning domestic violence against women and girls: Dear Cllr Kemkaran, We understand that SATEDA has already raised concerns with you, and we'd like to add our united voices to theirs. We are writing to you as local specialist domestic abuse services in Kent to express concern following last week's Kent County Council meeting, during which a motion on preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG), proposed by Cllr Mark Hood and Cllr Stuart Jeffery, was rejected by a vote of 22 in favour, 3 abstentions, and 41 against. As frontline services supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse across Kent, we were disheartened to see such an important and timely motion voted down - especially given the scale of violence against women and girls in our communities. We are even more concerned by remarks made during the debate, particularly the suggestion that refugees and trans people are to blame for the recorded 37% rise in violence against women and girls over the past five years. This is simply not true and it shifts attention away from the root causes of VAWG - domestic abuse and a culture of misogyny here in the UK. We can say with confidence that what we witness daily in our work across Kent is women and children living in fear, harmed overwhelmingly by men in their lives, not by people from foreign countries seeking sanctuary - much like our clients - or trans people who make up only 0,10% of the UK population. Domestic abuse happens behind closed doors and is perpetrated by partners, ex-partners and family members, Nationally, 1 in 4 women willexperience domestic abuse in their lifetime. in Kent, 1 in 5 reported crimes are domestic abuse-related. Domestic abuse is disproportionally perpetrated against women and children and the vast majority of perpetrators are men intimately known to the victims. On average, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner. Here is where the focus should be. Violence against womer and girls isn't an easy subject, but it's one that affects us all. That's why " we believe it needs to be approached with compassion, clarity, and a shared commitment to evidence-led action. The motion proposed practical steps - including public awareness campaigns, bystander training, and safety-led planning and licensing - which would have built on the great work that's already happening here locally to improve safety for vomen and girls in Kent. Its rejection, and the scapegoating language used during the debate, represent a missed opportunity and a worrying departure from the facts. It serves to embolden perpetrators and increase risks to women and children. We request the opportunity to meet with you and other interested colleagues to share our frontline experience and data, and to help refocus efforts on meaningful, evidence-based solutions to end violence against women and girls. We hope you will take up this offer in the spirit of constructive dialogue and shared commitment to safety, truth, and equality, and that you will reconsider this important motion. We're proud of the work Kent already does in this space, and we believe there's real potential to lead by example, to make Kent a place where all women and girls can feel safe and supported. Yours sincerely, Claire Williams, CEO at Oasis Domestic Abuse Service Fran ElliS, CEO at F Rising Sun Domestic Violence and Abuse Service Gay Larter, Interim-CEO at DAVVS Domestic Abuse Volunteer Support Service Amanda Walker, CEO at New Leaf Domestic Abuse Service

22 Reactions

Comments (13)

Martin Wilson
2h·Riverview
People who can't separate their own prejudice from the issue under debate have no business taking office. Why did they get voted in?

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3

Alex Morris
2h·Riverside
Martin
I think for some people, migration (with blurred lines between legal and illegal) is the be all and end all of politics. Just look at the conversation about the lido in Medway. People talking about whether it used to have a slide, the lack of indoor seating and some missing tiles. Totally predictably, someone has chipped in saying it is the fault of immigrants. Every conversation is like that. Many voters just aren't interested in solutions. They want to feel justified in blaming immigrants.

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Sally Bodman
11m·Loose, England
Is it possible to get a copy of the minutes from this meeting? I’ve just looked in the KCC website and the agenda is there but no minutes. I also think it’s interesting how on this issue Reform supports appear to have no comments to make ….,

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Claire Stacey
5h·West Malling
Thank-you for raising this and sharing this information on this platform. Unfortunately there are many who are blind to the rampant misogyny that feeds our society and how harmful it is to everyone, not just women and children. I agree with Brady, voting reform if you care about the women and children in your life does not make sense.

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6

Sally Bodman
4h·Loose, England
Exactly the kind of focus on slogans and rhetoric that fits their agenda against any and all minorities which seems to also include women and girls now! Forget any facts, forget listening to people who actually deal with these issues day in and day out. What actual reasons were given for voting against what sound like practical and sensible steps regardless of who they believe the perpetrators are?!

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3

Richard Tinsley
5h·Maidstone Bridge
Thank you Steve, for sharing this. A very, very important and worrying subject. Take care

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3

Brady Coughlan
18h · Edited·Tovil
Why anyone with daughters or grandchildren would vote for a Reform led Council is beyond me....taking away protections for very vulnerable groups is just bloody stupid and dangerous

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9

Callita D.
17h · Edited·Luton Road
Brady
Who knows a good party, please share! I think Tories and Farage are no good, on the other hand, Labour are trying to drug us out of this situation, but their hands are tight and they do not have a lot of choice! But they choose a "smaller evil" of what is possible to do, being heavily criticised by all others.. l remember our life like 25 years ago, my pay was £5 an hour, but pensions were decent!!! Like enough for living. WHAT HAPPENS NOW???? l personally think evrything had changed after Covid...

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Alex Morris
16h·Riverside
Callita
Thanks to triple lock, the value of the state pension is increasing all the time. Reform want to privatise the state pension, so I wouldn't turn to them for a better pension - or a pension at all.

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3

Nigel L.
19h·Cage Green
Unfortunately, symbolic of the misinformation and lies we can expect, on range of topics, for next four years. Trouble is people who voted for/support Reform tend to believe it.

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7

Barbara McKeown
18h·Coxheath
Nigel
The Americans have trumpitis so I suspect the reform voters have Faragitis!

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5

Kenny Evans
4h·Snodland
We can't let this poisonous ideology take root in this country. Reform is a misnomer. It's business as usual for racists and scumbaggery.

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5

Nic L.
20h·Hildenborough
Well said , thank you .

I'm not sure about this. Would need to read the minutes. The proposals seem to be linked to white ribbon campaign. I'm also reminded of Khan's 'Maaaate' campaign. I think it's fair enough to ask about actual results before funding.
I don't want to jump on a Reform bashing bandwagon.

'The motion proposed practical steps - including public awareness campaigns, bystander training, and safety-led planning and licensing - which would have built on the great work that's already happening here locally to improve safety for vomen and girls in Kent.'

So 22 voted in favour, 3 abstained, and 41 against.

Kent County Council is made up of 81 members (councillors) who are elected every 4 years. 81 members were elected in May 2025.
The council is currently made up of:

• 56 Reform UK
• 12 Liberal Democrat
• 5 Green
• 5 Conservative
• 2 Labour (including Labour and Co-operative Party)
• 1 Independent.

The debate is here

https://kent.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/991098

I am a mum from Kent and one of the people whose comments have been included. VAWG has increased by 37% in 5 years in Kent. 20% of ALL crime is domestic abuse and the charities and organisations working in the county have categorically stated that this is overwhelmingly committed by family members.

This debate made no mention of cost or practicalities. The opposition of the Reform Councillors was based on 3 main arguments. 1. That it was all because of the immigrants. No actual evidence produced and these facts completely dismissed as false by those organisations actually working with women and children who’ve suffered violence in the county. 2. That the proposal should include violence against everyone because it shouldn’t focus on women and girls - this despite the facts presented in the proposal that 20% of crime in Kent is domestic abuse and if that 70%+ is against women.3. That because domestic abuse was higher in deprived areas it was the result of the prevailing economic situation.

Points 1 & 3 were used to basically say we can’t do anything because these are the results of central government policy.

The proposal included a number of things that built on work already gapping in some areas of the county - training for bar, pub and club staff regarding violence and spiking, ensuring that safety was always a mandatory consideration for planning applications for example adequate lighting, creating a strategy and subcommittee to look at ways to tackle this issue locally. All things that the council has the power to do in order to make some attempt to create improvements

All of this was dismissed as “performative” by the Reform Councillors leader and the whole proposal was voted down.

For mums cross the country this should send alarm bells - Reform won’t make your children safe unless is suits their agenda.

I only listened until I had had enough, which was not for long.

Reform wanted to include everyone as victims but only immigrants a perpetrators.

I’m not at all surprised, I’m afraid. Reform have made it very clear that VAWG is of interest to them only when they cannusw it to blame immigrants. As soon as we’re talking about the crime outside ethnic minorities, they’re more than happy to deny it ever happens.

The proportion of overseas s offenders in prison has risen 9.9% in 12 months. (three times the rate of UK offenders, 3.8%) One in eight of all prisoners are from overseas. So are 40% of charged s offenders in London. The increase in foreign violent offenders in prison in the year has been 8.8, whereas the increase in Britons jailed for violence was 4.8% (Ministry of Justice)

There is a bit of a problem with rigid thinking and unexamined stereotypes in many organisations.e.g. Domestic Violence = a man hitting his wife, who flees, clutching her little children. A plethora of organisations are funded to look after exactly that situation, and police have all been trained to expect it, and deal with it, under specific domestic violence laws. There will be special refuges for the women to enter, and get counselling and advice and social workers. Councils will then prioritise re-housing the mother and children.Welfare benefits will be organised.

If a woman is attacked in any way, inside the place she lives, by anyone who shares that residence and has the key, but is not a partner, she doesn't count. However badly injured she is, however violently raped, however much she has been coerced and threatened to hand over her money, she doesn't count, because she 'selected' the incorrect category of abuser. If she is old, she doesn't count. If she is disabled, she doesn't count. Neither refuges nor council accommodation are wheelchair accessible,

There is a housing case law finding (decades old) that a flat-sharer (a young man) could say he was afraid of one of the other men in the flat, and therefore needed to go and get somewhere more expensive to live, but could still claim the full new, higher, rent on Housing Benefit, and not be accused of making himself voluntarily homeless, or voluntarily upgrading his accommodation at public cost. The judge remarked that it was possible for people , not exclusively students, to share homes, despite being unrelated and not being partners. He also remarked that it was possible even for a man to feel that he wanted to get another place to live, merely from sensing hostility and fearing a threat, without experiencing any violence.

Yet despite this finding, which has been followed ever since for welfare benefits purposes, it is impossible for the multitude of Domestic Violence organisations to accept any such possibility.

With the ever-increasing population and the ever-decreasing numbers of private tenancies, it is now impossible for any but 'gold standard' applicants (i.e. double high earners, young, with parents willing to put up their own house as a bond), to rent anywhere to live.

Young women with children and on benefits can be housed by councils, with or without the Womens Aid charities. Yet those charities concentrate exclusively on that tiny. already caterred-for, sub-group of all vulnerable women.

Old (or disabled) women are the most vulnerable to violence, because they simply cannot get any roof over their heads, officially. They are forced into unofficial sub lets, where they have no rent book therefore no right to stay, but are rightly terrified of being turned out onto the street at any moment, for disobeying a sub-landlord or fellow resident. By failing to fit the imagined ideal stereotype of the young mother, they don't exist, as far as councils or police or VAWG are concerned.

With no official address, they can't have an M.P. to appeal to, nor can they register with a G.P. Nor do they have recourse to police. Above all, the Womens Aid places will turn them away if they arrive badly injured, because failing to be in a 'personal relationship' with the attacker renders the victim someone with a civil complaint, akin to disputing with a neighbour about a parking space.

I’m always hesitant when I see figures quoted like this - percentages without the values mean very little I’m afraid. Anyway this is all pretty irrelevant. The fact remains that the proposal in Kent centred on local initiatives within the remit of the KCC to deliver and make some positive change. The Reform councillors voted against this and “threw the baby out with the bath water” in order to grandstand on their usual hobby horse of migrants with a side dose of misogyny. As a result a proposal with some pretty good local initiatives was voted down and nothing has been done to improve things for the women and children in the county