Reform council hosts violence against women summit

Linden Kemkaran has said the council is "focussed on protecting women and girls"

The leader of Kent County Council has hosted a talk to discuss violence against women and girls.

Ahead of the event on Tuesday, Reform's Linden Kemkaran told BBC Radio Kent it was "an opportunity for everybody to get in the same room and discuss all the issues which are making women and girls less safe in the UK today".

Kemkaran was criticised after claiming at a council meeting the rise in violence was due to trans people and "young males from unenlightened cultures" arriving in Kent via small boats.

Kent County Council has been approached for comment.

Green councillor Mark Hood said: "It's scapegoating, you're going to have a misunderstanding of the dangers. People in Kent are being told by Reform that they need to live in fear, but that's not the case.

"We've got a false reality being portrayed."

He said there was a "real problem with toxic masculinity and we need to get that message into schools - it's men and young boys who are the perpetrators".

Green councillor Mark Hood said the Reform Party on KCC was "scapegoating" asylum seekers

Antony Hook, the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council, told BBC Radio Kent he believed the event had been organised as "a political rally".

He said: "I made it really clear I would be really happy to attend a constructive event about violence against women and girls.

"We have a cabinet committee that deals with this issue. It should be on the agenda there."

Liberal Democrat leader Antony Hook said the council already has a cabinet committee where the issue can be discussed

Kemkaran told BBC Radio Kent the event had a broader reach than that being portrayed by the Greens.

She said eight speakers would be talking about spiking, better CCTV, proper data gathering and sharing, and the dangers of smart phones.

"We are focussed on coming up with a plan to better protect women and girls in Kent," she added.

A small protest of about a dozen people, including Green councillors, trans rights activists and supporters of asylum seekers, gathered outside County Hall during the event.

Labour and the Conservatives have been contacted for comment.

The summit was held at County Hall in Maidstone

At a meeting on 10 July, the Green Group put forward a motion which its councillors said would help to address a 37% increase in violence against women and girls nationally since 2018.

The eight-point plan included public awareness campaigns, a women's night time safety charter, the creation of safe spaces and a programme for schools targeting boys and their attitudes to relationships and abuse.

Kemkaran called the motion a "sticking plaster" and "virtue signalling".

She claimed migrants arriving in the county were "three and a half times more likely to be arrested for sex offences against women and girls than their British-born counterparts".