A veteran councillor has defended herself after Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns used her victory speech to make a jibe over her ‘South African accent’, declaring: ‘I don’t have one!’
Councillor Marianne Overton, the Independent candidate for Greater Lincolnshire, told it was ‘disappointing’ to see Dame Andrea launch into ‘political point-scoring’ immediately after becoming the county’s first elected mayor.
Lincolnshire was at the centre of Reform’s political earthquake that has left Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party trembling after Dame Andrea won in every area of the county bar one with a total of 104,133 votes.
Cllr Overton was joined by the Labour and Conservative candidates in walking off stage after Dame Andrea called for migrants to be housed in tents instead of hotels moments after winning by more than 40,000 votes.
Speaking on stage at Grimsby Town Hall, Dame Andrea also called out Cllr Overton, saying: ‘The campaign was also filled with irony. As one of the candidates stated I was parachuted in – she said in her South African accent.’
Dame Andrea, who had faced questions over whether she met the residence criteria to stand, then raised her eyebrows and sniggered but her jibe was met with murmurs from the crowd.
Cllr Overton, who came fourth in the mayoral race with 19,911 votes, has served in local government in Lincolnshire for more than 30 years and joked ‘I really don’t!’ when asked whether she had a South African accent.
The long-serving councillor attended school in South Africa but came to the UK before she turned 10, studying in London and moving to Lincolnshire, where she has been a councillor since 1991.
Speaking exclusively to today, Cllr Overton said: ‘It wasn’t great for someone to make personal attacks when we had congratulated her and applauded her magnanimously.’
Cllr Overton, who is the leader of the Local Government Association Independent Group, had previously made a formal objection to Dame Andrea running for mayor, accusing her of being ‘parachuted in’ from outside of Lincolnshire by Reform.
Dame Andrea splits her time between an address in Bassingham, near Lincoln, and a house in Yorkshire, where her son is at school.
She later doubled down on her comments about Cllr Overton, saying there was an ‘irony of saying someone’s being parachuted in who’s not even from the country’.
Reacting to the comments, Cllr Overton told she was ‘surprised’, adding: ‘I think it’s disappointing. We expect more from the mayor, a more statesmanlike approach, bringing different parties together.
‘Lots of people have different accents. I’ve lived in this area for a very long time and served in this area for a very long time and made a huge commitment.’
Cllr Overton said she would have liked to have seen Dame Andrea ‘bringing people together, not wasting time on fighting and political point scoring’.
The councillor said Dame Andrea used her position on stage to make the remarks ‘when nobody else had a voice’ – despite the other candidates ‘congratulating and applauding’ her.
Cllr Overton condemned Dame Andrea’s comments about housing migrants in tents rather than hotels. Asked why she walked off stage, she said: ‘Most of the room also walked out. It was completely out of place.
‘That may have been the speech she was nominated for, but once you are elected it’s time to do the job. We need to be together.’
According to Cllr Overton’s LinkedIn, she spent three years at St Anne’s Diocesan College, a highly-respected boarding school for girls in the small South African town of Hilton before moving to the UK before she was 10.
When she moved to London in 1973, Cllr Overton was enrolled at Grey Coat Hospital, an elite Church of England state school in the heart of Westminster.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron and veteran Cabinet minister Michael Gove have also sent their daughters to the school.
After completing her O and A-Levels at the prestigious school, Cllr Overton studied Zoology and animal biology at King’s College in London before spending a year as a postgraduate at the Institute of Education.
In a near 50-year career, Cllr Overton has held a number of jobs, ranging from teaching biology to working with the NHS.
But for 30 years, she has been the leader of the Lincolnshire independents. Cllr Overton currently sits on the planning committee for Lincolnshire County Council and North Kesteven District Council.
She has also been the leader of the Local Government Association Independent Group for the last 12 years. She is particularly involved in environmental issues, health and social care and education.
In an explosive interview after her win, Dame Andrea said she had ‘never experienced such negativity and soul-destroying campaigns against me like this one’.
‘The campaign was also filled with irony as one of the candidates stated I was parachuted in – she said in her South African accent,’ she then jibed.
She added: ‘They undemocratically tried to remove me from the ballot but I will say no more on this.’
When questioned by Sky News about her remarks, she said: ‘What I meant is how can they say I’m parachuted in when I’ve spent most of my life in Lincolnshire?’
When pressed on why she mentioned the accent, Dame Andrea said there was an ‘irony of saying someone’s being parachuted in who’s not even from the country’.
‘I went to school, college, university..’
As the reporter interjected to say, ‘So someone who has got an accent can’t be from this county?’, Dame Andrea roller her eyes and fumed: ‘I think I’m not going to answer any more of your questions.’
Growing increasingly agitated, she insisted it had been a ‘little play on words’ which was ‘a little joke because of the irony’.
‘Do you not understand irony?’ she said before walking off.
Dame Andrea had immediately sparked a backlash after winning as she called for migrants to be housed in tents instead of hotels.
She called for ‘an end to soft touch Britain’ in her victory speak, prompting some of her rivals to walk off stage.
Later, she doubled down on her views, insisting that the ‘silent majority’ would back her in thinking migrants should be housed in tents like they do in France.
Dame Andrea served as Tory MP for Morley and Outwood in West Yorkshire from 2015 until last year’s general election, when the constituency was abolished.
She defeated then-shadow chancellor Ed Balls to claim the seat by a slender majority of 422.
Last July, she was beaten to the new Leeds South West and Morley constituency by Labour’s Mark Sewards, picking up 23 per cent of the vote, and caused a stir after her election campaign leaflet included an image of her and Nigel Farage at his 60th birthday party.
A staunch supporter of Brexit and Boris Johnson, she submitted no-confidence letters in both former prime ministers Theresa May and Rishi Sunak.
Dame Andrea was appointed assistant whip under the Johnson administration in September 2021 before becoming a Department for Education minister in July 2022.
There was considerable reaction from teachers’ leaders shortly after when Ms Jenkyns made an ‘obscene gesture’ to the public outside Downing Street, as she went to watch Mr Johnson’s resignation speech.
In response, she said that a ‘baying mob outside the gates were insulting MPs on their way in as is sadly too common’.
She was reappointed in the role by Liz Truss that September, who she endorsed in the party leadership election, but remained part of the cabinet for only 49 days and left after Rishi Sunak became the new prime minister.
Ms Jenkyns was given a damehood in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list in June 2023.
At a press conference in November last year, Dame Andrea announced her defection to Reform UK and said she had become the 100,000th member of the party.
Following the announcement, she said that she and Mr Farage were ‘politically aligned’ and that the Conservative Party had ‘become tired’.
Speaking after her mayoral victory on Friday, Ms Jenkyns said: ‘To the people of Lincolnshire, thank you for putting your trust in me. I will work tirelessly for you every day.’
She continued: ‘To Nigel (Farage), to Richard (Tice) and to Zia (Yusuf), I thank you for your friendship, for your support and getting me through these last few difficult weeks. I’m immensely proud to be part of the Reform family, so thank you for welcoming me.
‘I’ve fought many elections – four general elections, my third local election – but… I’ve never experienced such negativity and soul-destroying campaigns against me like this one.
‘The dirty tricks in the US politics I believe has now been imported here into Britain.’