South Thanet

South Thanet
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of South Thanet in Kent.
Location of Kent within England.
County	Kent
Electorate	67,970 (December 2010)
Major settlements	Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Sandwich
Current constituency
Created	1983
Member of parliament	Craig Mackinlay
Number of members	One
Created from	Thanet West, Dover and Thanet East
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	South East England

South Thanet is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK parliament since 2015 by Craig Mackinlay MP, a Conservative.

Tourism is an important economic activity with entertainment and beaches, particularly at Broadstairs. The constituency also includes part of the Stour Valley Walk, which passes through Sandwich on its way to Canterbury and beyond. There are picturesque villages with oast houses. The amount of fishing and coastal trade is much reduced relative to the 19th century, and is small compared to many other British ports. The seat has a higher proportion of retired people than the national average and incomes tend to be clustered around the national mean. Economic developments have included the nearby Thanet Offshore Wind Project as well as commercial, recreational and tourism activities. Farming, trades, and Ramsgate harbour provide much of the employment. Pharmaceuticals received a blow when Pfizer withdrew from the area. The unemployed claimant count, at 5.4%, was the highest of the South East's 84 constituencies at the end of 2010, and greater than the national average of 3.8%. Since its creation in 1983 the seat has been a bellwether.

In 2016 an investigation by Channel 4 News revealed that the Conservative Party had spent many thousands of pounds centrally on battlebuses to transport activists, and hotel accommodation for the activists, who went to campaign in marginal constituencies, including South Thanet. The expenditure on the buses was declared by the Conservative Party on its national declaration of "Campaign Spending", but in some cases the hotel accommodation was not declared at all as election spending when it should have been. In addition, there is controversy about whether the expenditure, both on the buses and the accommodation, should have been declared on the declarations of expenditure for the constituency made by each candidate's election agent. Kent Police began an investigation into the spending returns of Craig Mackinlay following the Channel 4 report.