Harriet Bronwen Yeo [1] is a British trade unionist, a former Treasurer and President of Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA), [1] [2] and a UK Independence Party (UKIP) politician who stood unsuccessfully for parliament in Folkestone and Hythe at the 2015 general election. [3]
Formerly a Labour politician, she was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party until September 2013, and was national Chair of the Party for the year 2012–2013. [4] She was a councillor in Ashford Borough Council, Kent, where she was Leader of the Labour Group until February 2015. [5] [6] In 2012 she stood as Labour candidate for Police and crime commissioner for Kent. [1] [7]
Yeo was deselected as a Labour candidate for the 2015 local elections and left to join UKIP the next day. She was also replaced as leader of Ashford Council's Labour group, after being accused of non-attendance at council meetings and a failure undertake council casework. [8]
In February 2015, she left the Labour Party, blaming Ed Miliband's refusal to promise an EU In/Out Referendum, [5] [9] and announced support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) without becoming a member of UKIP, sitting as an independent councillor. [5] [10] Her daughter had also left Labour to stand for UKIP in the 2013 Kent County Council elections for the Ashford South division, an election where Harriet Yeo had also stood for Labour unsuccessfully in the Ashford East division. [6]
On 24 March 2015, it was announced that Yeo had joined UKIP and was to replace Janice Atkinson, UKIP's Prospective parliamentary candidate in Folkestone and Hythe, who had been removed from UKIP the day before amid an alleged expenses fraud. [3] In the general election held on 7 May, Yeo came second in Folkestone and Hythe, losing to Damian Collins (Conservative) with 12,526 votes. Elections to Ashford Borough Council were held on the same day, but she did not stand for re-election there. [11]
Folkestone and Hythe is a local government district in Kent, England. It lies in the south-east of the county, on the coast of the English Channel. The district was formed in 1974 and was originally named Shepway after one of the ancient lathes of Kent, which had covered a similar area. The district was renamed in 2018. The council is based in Folkestone, the district's largest town. The district also includes the towns of Hawkinge, Hythe, Lydd and New Romney, along with numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.
Folkestone and Hythe is a constituency in Kent represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Tony Vaughan, a Labour MP.
Ashford is a constituency in Kent created in 1885 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Sojan Joseph of the Labour Party.
The Senior Citizens Party was a political party in the United Kingdom from 2004–2014, which focused on the rights of people over the age of 50, senior citizens. They claimed a membership of several thousand.
The mayor of Tower Hamlets is the directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council in east London, England. The first election for this position occurred on 21 October 2010, taking on the executive function of the borough council. The position is different from the previous largely ceremonial, annually appointed mayors of Tower Hamlets, who became known as the 'Chair of Council' after the first election and are now known as the 'Speaker of Council'. The second election was held on 22 May 2014, the same day as the Tower Hamlets Council election, other United Kingdom local elections, and European Parliament elections, but the election result was declared void by the election court. A by-election was held on 11 June 2015.
Polly Billington is a British Labour Party politician serving as Member of Parliament for East Thanet since 2024.
The 2012 police and crime commissioner elections were polls held in most police areas in England and Wales on Thursday 15 November. The direct election of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) was originally scheduled for May 2012 but was postponed in order to secure the passage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 through the House of Lords. The government considers the elected commissioners to have a stronger mandate than the "unelected and invisible police authorities that they replace". The elections took place alongside by-elections for the House of Commons in Cardiff South and Penarth, Corby and Manchester Central, and a mayoral election in Bristol.
On 29 November 2012, a by-election was held for the UK House of Commons constituency of Rotherham. The by-election was caused by the resignation of its Member of Parliament Denis MacShane after the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee found that he had submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" the parliamentary expenses authority, an issue dating back to 2009 and a wider parliamentary expenses scandal in the UK. MacShane accepted the office of Chiltern Hundreds on 5 November 2012, formally vacating his seat. The election took place on 29 November 2012, at the same time as by-elections in Croydon North and Middlesbrough which were caused by the deaths of the sitting MPs.
A by-election for the House of Commons constituency of Eastleigh in Hampshire was held on 28 February 2013.
A by-election was held for the United Kingdom House of Commons constituency of South Shields on 2 May 2013. It was triggered by the resignation of David Miliband, the previous Member of Parliament (MP) and former Foreign Secretary, who had held the seat for Labour since 2001. The by-election coincided with local elections across England.
The Kent County Council election, 2013 was an election to all 84 seats on Kent County Council held on Thursday 2 May as part of the 2013 United Kingdom local elections. 84 councillors were elected from 72 electoral divisions, which returned either one or two county councillors each by first-past-the-post voting for a four-year term of office. The electoral divisions were the same as those used at the previous election in 2009. No elections were held in Medway, which is a unitary authority outside the area covered by the County Council. The election saw the Conservative Party narrowly retain overall control of the council.
Diane Martine James is a British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 2014 to 2019. She was briefly leader-elect of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from September 2016 to October 2016, but resigned before formalising her leadership. At the time of her election to the European Parliament, James was one of three UKIP MEPs for South East England, before joining the Brexit Party in 2019.
Janice Ann Atkinson is a former British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament for the South East England region. She formerly represented the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and later sat as an independent: she was elected in 2014, second on the list for the region behind Nigel Farage. In March 2015, she was expelled from UKIP for "bringing the party into disrepute" after her chief of staff was recorded trying to fraudulently inflate her expenses.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 May 2015 to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was the first of three general elections to be held under the rules of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and was the last general election to be held before the United Kingdom voted to end its membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016. Local elections took place in most areas of England on the same day and is to date the most recent general election to coincide with local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister, David Cameron, won an unexpected victory; opinion polls and political commentators had predicted that the results of the election would cause a second consecutive hung parliament whose composition would be similar to the previous Parliament, which was in effect from the previous national election in 2010. However, opinion polls underestimated the Conservatives, as they won 330 of the 650 seats and 36.9 per cent of the votes, giving them a majority of ten seats.
On 9 October 2014, a by-election was held for the UK parliamentary constituency of Heywood and Middleton. It was triggered by the death of its MP Jim Dobbin on 6 September 2014. It was held on the same day as the Clacton by-election. The Labour Party narrowly held the seat following a recount. UK Independence Party (UKIP) came second, and increased its vote by 36 percentage points since the previous general election.
A by-election was held on 20 November 2014 for the UK parliamentary constituency of Rochester and Strood in Kent, England. The sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Mark Reckless called it on joining the UK Independence Party (UKIP), from the Conservatives. He resigned his seat.
Henry David Bolton is a former British politician who was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 29 September 2017 to 17 February 2018. He served in the British Army, attaining the rank of lance corporal, and went on to reach the rank of captain following his transfer to the Territorial Army from the Regular Army. Bolton has also served as a police officer.
Piers Andrew Charles Wauchope is a British barrister and politician who served as interim leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) between June and August 2019.
Elections to Folkestone & Hythe District Council were held on 2 May 2019.
The former Labour NEC chief tells Isabel Oakeshott how she was ousted from her union presidency by dirty tricks