Harriet Bronwen Yeo is a British trade unionist, a former Treasurer and President of
Transport Salaried Staffs' Association
The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) is a trade union for workers in the transport and travel industries in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its head office is in London, and it has regional offices in Bristol, Derby, Dublin, Manche ...
(TSSA), and a
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
politician, she was a member of the
National Executive Committee National Executive Committee is the name of a leadership body in several organizations, mostly political parties:
* National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, in South Africa
* Australian Labor Party National Executive
* Nationa ...
of the Labour Party until September 2013, and was national Chair of the Party for the year 2012–2013. She was a councillor in
Ashford Borough Council Ashford may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Ashford, New South Wales
*Ashford, South Australia
* Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia
Ireland
*Ashford, County Wicklow
*Ashford Castle, County Galway
United Kingdom
* Ashford, Kent, a town
* ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, where she was Leader of the Labour Group until February 2015. In 2012 she stood as Labour candidate for Police and crime commissionerfor Kent.
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.
Joining UKIP
In February 2015, she left the Labour Party, blaming
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliban ...
's refusal to promise an EU In/Out Referendum, and announced support for the
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
(UKIP) without becoming a member of UKIP, sitting as an independent councillor. 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.
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. In the general election held on 7 May, Yeo came second in Folkestone and Hythe, losing to
Damian Collins
Damian Noel Thomas Collins (born 4 February 1974) is a British Conservative Party politician who formerly served as Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between July and October 2022. ...
(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.Result of Election, Ashford Borough Council, 7 May 2015 (all results) at ashford.gov.uk, accessed 1 November 2015