The Isle of Sheppey and Sittingbourne turned turquoise as Reform UK claimed five of the seven Swale divisions at Kent County Council.
Of the seven counted at Swallows Leisure Centre, Sittingbourne, only Faversham and Swale East elected members to County Hall not from the party, which has swept into control.
Recounts were initially expected earlier in proceedings but in all divisions, the winners won with significant margins.
Maxwell Harrison’s majority of 3,435 votes over the next non-Reform candidate in Sheppey and his colleague Isabella Kemp’s lead of 2,980 demonstrated the party’s dominace on the island.
In Swale West, Mike Baldock from the Swale Independents Against Excessive Housing was unseated by Reform’s Richard Palmer, with a difference of 730 votes.
Cllr Palmer had put out a statement criticising Mr Baldock for remarks he is alleged to have made about Cllr Palmer standing for Reform, but Mr Baldock said he did not recognise the accusations made against him.
When the results were announced, Reform supporters cheered but soon after booed, after Cllr Baldock appeared to refuse to shake his opponent’s hand.
Cllr Baldock said he had fallen foul of the public using the local elections as a “referendum on the Starmer government” and was a victim of people’s anger towards the Prime Minister.
He said: “This has been turned into a referendum on Starmer; nobody wanted to know about local issues: ‘We’ve got to get Starmer out. got to give him a kicking.’ That’s what I was getting on the doorstep.
“They don’t care that this is Kent County Council.
“People have made a rash decision they’ll feel good about, giving Starmer a bloody nose, but they will find out they’ve elected some hard-right economic policies which will destroy our services.”
Paul Webb was elected to Sittingbourne South under the Reform banner and said across Kent and the wider country, voters were making it known they were not happy with the status quo.
He said: “I think people voted for a change, a real difference. They were fed up with being lied to by a variety of politicians.
“People are looking for a new party, a different party, which actually listens to people, they’ve not had that for a long while.
“Hopefully, we can bring that to KCC now. If we can get into control, we can take a look at the books, see where we can start saving money, make some common sense cuts to things and show we are on the side of the people.
“We will show we’re thinking of them first, not some of the vanity projects we’ve seen KCC do recently.”
Antony Hook, Liberal Democrats, retained his seat in Faversham and said it had rejected Reform’s divisive campaigning.
He said: “I think we’ve held on because of the hard work we do, and also Faversham has a really strong sense of community.
“Reform played divisive politics, but Faversham is a community that can’t really be divided. People know each other, people trust each other.”
He added while he sympathised with ousted Tory leader Roger Gough on a personal level, the Conservatives’ poor governance nationally had caused the loss.
He continued: “I like Roger personally. I think he’s an honourable, decent man, so I’m sorry for him personally that he’s lost his seat.
“But the Conservatives have been moving in a populist, hard-right direction themselves for 10 years since Brexit and that has legitimised the kind of populist agenda that Reform is offering.
“But the Sunak government, the Truss government weren’t able to deliver because a lot of those populist, right-wing promises are empty and can never be delivered.”
Rich Lehmann was the other non-Reform winner at the Swale count, retaining his role as a Green councillor at KCC for Swale East.
He said he managed to be returned because the two main parties were drawing most ire from the public, while Green councillors serve communities well.
He said: “My feeling is we’re going to see a pattern of Labour and Conservatives hugely down on vote-share, but Green councillors work incredibly hard, they’re incredibly diligent, and we’re respected in our communities because of that.
“I’m very concerned about Reform forming the majority at KCC and we’ll have a strong Green group there to scrutinise the actions they take.”
The full list of winners for the Swale count were:
Faversham – Antony Hook, Liberal Democrat
Sheppey – Maxwell Harrison and Isabella Kemp, Reform UK
Sittingbourne North – Chris Palmer, Reform UK
Sittingbourne South – Paul Webb, Reform UK
Swale East – Rich Lehmann, Green Party
Swale West – Richard Palmer, Reform UK
