Michael Hadwen at Kent County Council as Reform UK Creates Taxpayer-Funded Political Assistant Roles: Has He Already Been Appointed?

Updated: 19 Dec 15:55

Mr Michael Hadwen was in the Kent County Council chamber yesterday. On its own, that is not a crime, a scandal, or even unusual: local democracy is meant to be observable. But in the very week Kent’s Reform-run administration has been pushing ahead with the creation of political assistant posts — salaried council jobs designed to support political groups — his presence raises an obvious public-interest question: Has he already been appointed given he a Cllr Linden Kemkaran have shared the same platform?

That question matters because, unlike ordinary council recruitment, Political Assistants roles are deliberately built to be political. A report to full council (signed by Reform leader Linden Kemkaran and Chief Executive Amanda Beer) sets out that Kent may establish up to three such posts under section 9 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, with each post running on a fixed term until the annual meeting after the next elections. The same report states the pay is capped by law at spinal column point 38, “currently £49,282 (FTE)”, before employer on-costs. 

In Kent’s case, the report says the Reform UK group and the Liberal Democrat group currently qualify (because the entitlement is tied to the largest groups meeting a 10% membership threshold). And it underlines a crucial operational point: each post is filled “in accordance with the wishes of the Political Group entitled to appoint” — in plain English, the party group effectively gets its pick. 

So if a nationally-connected Reform campaign figure is suddenly watching proceedings at County Hall, residents are entitled to ask whether the choice has already been made — quietly, quickly, and without the kind of transparent process councils usually insist upon.

Who is Michael Hadwen — publicly?

Mr Hadwen presents himself publicly as a political strategist / campaign director. National reporting has placed him in Reform’s professionalising “engine room”: The Guardian described Reform having “installed” former Conservatives into key roles and named Hadwen as “a veteran of Robert Jenrick’s Conservative leadership campaign” who was working on strategy at Reform HQ. 

Online, he has also been publicly associated with senior operational work inside Reform — including campaigns, training, and candidates — and he has used his own platforms to amplify recruitment messages. A LinkedIn post attributed to him advertises Reform HQ expanding and hiring. 

He also has an evidenced political past in Conservative circles. Minutes from Bucklesham Parish Council (March 2024) record the clerk being contacted by “Michael Hadwen, Constituency Assistant to Therese Coffey MP”.  And a public LinkedIn post attributed to him describes moving back to Suffolk Coastal to help Coffey’s re-election campaign.

There has also been scrutiny. In June 2025, HOPE not Hate published allegations about historic social-media posts it attributed to him (including a claim relating to support for Enoch Powell and favourable remarks about Milo Yiannopoulos). Those claims were then repeated in commentary coverage elsewhere. (To be clear: these are published allegations being reported, not a fresh claim.) 

Why his appearance at County Hall matters now

A political assistant is not a harmless “intern with a lanyard”. It is a council job designed to strengthen party operations inside the authority — funded by the public.

Kent’s own report makes the boundary problem explicit. Political assistants are “politically restricted” posts, yet government guidance allows them to campaign in public — with one caveat: they must not give the impression they are acting as the party’s representative. 

Read that again. A role paid by council taxpayers is permitted to speak publicly to affect support for a political party — but must somehow do so without looking like they represent that party. The line is not merely thin. It is practically transparent.

And the same report recommends delegating the practical machinery of this arrangement — job description, protocol, management arrangements and how assistants attend meetings — to the Chief Executive, alongside constitutional changes by the Monitoring Officer and funding options by the finance director. 

Against that backdrop, Mr Hadwen’s presence in the chamber yesterday becomes more than idle curiosity. If he is merely an observer, fine. If he is already embedded as the likely pick for a taxpayer-funded political role, then the public deserves clarity.

The question Kent residents should be asking

So here are the questions that now hang over County Hall, plainly and urgently.

Has Kent County Council already appointed a political assistant (or begun the process) before residents have been shown the full governance framework — the job description, the protocol, the reporting lines, and the safeguards that stop a publicly funded post becoming a party’s internal campaign machine?

If Mr Hadwen has been appointed — when, on what contract terms, and at what salary point? Was the role advertised, or treated as a group nomination? And if it was a group nomination, what transparency will exist to show taxpayers that the legal limits are being followed and the “impression” rule is being respected?

These are not academic process points. They go to the heart of public trust — particularly at a time when Reform-run Kent has already faced criticism around transparency and documentation on other headline claims. 

The money question

Even using only the report’s own pay cap figure, two qualifying posts (Reform and Liberal Democrat) at the maximum would total £98,564 a year in salary alone, before National Insurance and pension on-costs — which is precisely why critics are already circling. 

This is why the sight of a nationally-reported Reform strategist in the chamber, right as these posts come into being, is not just gossip. It is a legitimate accountability story.

Kent County Council can end it in one sentence: confirm whether Mr Hadwen has (or has not) been appointed to any role connected to these political assistant posts, and publish the recruitment pathway and governance protocol in full.

Until then, the optics do the speaking — and the public will draw its own conclusions.

UPDATE:

A rival party claims Reform had already picked its political assistant — before the vote

The plot thickens because the Liberal Democrats are now alleging that Reform’s “political assistant” decision was effectively pre-cooked.

In a statement published on Friday by Kent County Councillor Tim Prater on the Folkestone & Hythe Liberal Democrats website, he says Reform pushed the political assistants motion through with every Reform councillor present supporting it, and describes the move as costing “around £150,000 a year” to Kent taxpayers. 

But his most serious allegation is not the cost — it is the sequence. Prater claims Reform councillors voted to create a new paid role “in the full and certain knowledge” of who would get it: Michael Hadwen. He further says he has raised concerns with the council, and states that video from a Reform group meeting on 17 December 2025 (the day before Full Council debated the report) shows the group’s whip, Maxwell Harrison, introducing Mr Hadwen as their “new Political Assistant”. 

If that allegation is accurate, it lands right on top of the government’s own warning about this scheme: “No appointments can be made until posts have been established for all qualifying groups.” It also collides with the wider “openness and transparency” expectations attached to these roles, precisely because they are taxpayer-funded and explicitly political. 

KCC’s official report to County Council — signed by the Reform leader Linden Kemkaran and Chief Executive Amanda Beer — makes clear the council was being asked on 18 December to approve establishing the posts, delegate constitutional changes to the Monitoring Officer, and authorise the Chief Executive to develop a recruitment protocol and make appointments “in accordance with the relevant legislation and guidance.”  The same report states the pay ceiling is £49,282 (FTE) per post (excluding on-costs), and confirms that Reform UK and the Liberal Democrat group currently qualify for a political assistant under the statutory scheme. 

Prater goes further, alleging that no-one declared an interest before backing a role while knowing who the recipient would be — a claim that, if substantiated, would be politically explosive in a chamber where “declarations of interests” is a standard, formal item of business. 

All of which leaves Kent residents with a simple demand for clarity. Did Reform already select Mr Hadwen for a taxpayer-funded political assistant role before the council had finished establishing the posts, agreeing the protocol, and satisfying the government’s sequencing requirements? If not, Reform and KCC should say so plainly — and publish the timeline: when recruitment began, whether any offer was made (formal or informal), and how the council will meet the government’s transparency expectations for these politically sensitive, publicly funded jobs.

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