A BASTION of socialism in Kent since 1978, the Whitstable Labour Club has disaffiliated from the party and will open on Sunday under a new name.

The Whitstable Social Club’s new constitution makes clear its continuing commitment to socialist values with its promise to “provide a venue for progressive and left-wing meetings, events, music and films” as well as its acknowledgement of “the values of the local founders of the club.” 
 
Relations with the party started to sour when the party tried to block Jacqui Walker’s one-woman show The Lynching in 2017. Walker was vice-chair of South Thanet Constituency Labour Party and vice-chair of Momentum before being summarily suspended and ultimately ejected from the party in its anti-semitism witch hunt, which targeted leftwingers and Corbyn supporters on often flimsy grounds.

More recently there was a bid to block the showing of Platform Films’ The Big Lie II: Starmer and the Genocide. The attempt to bully the club committee into not showing the film led, ultimately, to the ruction.

While the club sought a name change but was reluctant to disaffiliate, the party insisted on the constitutional change.

Read more about the history of the club at  whitstableviews.com/2025/03/31/socialism-and-sociability.