Statement from Shepway Green Party on revelations surrounding Councillor Andy Weatherhead
Last year residents in Hythe West elected Andy Weatherhead to the county council, encouraged to do so by many of his fellow Conservatives, including their local MP and the leader of Kent County Council.
Green candidate Georgina Treloar, who came second to Andy Weatherhead, said:
“It’s indicative of a desperate and morally corrupt Conservative party that they ever campaigned for an actual fascist to get onto Kent County Council in the local elections last year.
“It shows the rot at the heart of the local tory party. And it is sad that it has taken these revelations for the Tories to act decisively.”
The residents of West Hythe had never heard of Andrew Beadle, as he was known in his role as a senior officer at neo-nazi organisation New British Union (thank you Hope Not Hate for exposing this).
What were the vetting processes for candidate selection? Who knew about his past? Are there other local conservatives of a similar persuasion?
He should be expelled from the Conservative Party, but will he be? This is a local party chaired by a man, a school governor no less, who not only saw no problem with Suella Braverman’s language around migrants but added his own sickening hyperbole on twitter and thanked Cllr Weatherhead for his own inflammatory rhetoric on Talk TV.
This is a local party only controlling the council since 2019 because it did its own grubby deal with UKIP, which remains more than willing to fan the flames of racial disharmony.
The people of our district deserve better. Much better.
