David Cameron has been berated by his own candidate in the Rochester & Strood byelection over the “hurt” caused by immigration to her area and the need for “action, not just talk” on controlling the number of new arrivals.
In a leaflet distributed to voters, Kelly Tolhurst, the 36-year-old businesswoman standing for the Tories, said she would go straight to the prime minister and “demand something is done” if she won the byelection.
Tolhurst is lagging behind the favourite, Mark Reckless, the former Tory MP whose defection to Ukip triggered the byelection. The officially approved flyer, headlined Kelly Talks, appears to be an attempt by the Conservatives to portray their candidate as someone with Ukip-style views on immigration who will take a tougher line than her party and Cameron himself.
“I wanted to bring the prime minister to this constituency to show him that uncontrolled immigration has hurt this area. I told him we need action, not just talk … At the moment, migrants can have access to social housing after just two years of living here. I’m campaigning to get that extended to five years and, if elected, I’ll make sure that happens immediately,” she wrote.
The polls and bookmakers suggest Reckless is the clear favourite to win on Thursday, despite Cameron promising to throw the kitchen sink at the seat. Conservative MPs have been told to make at least three visits, although some have made only fleeting appearances.
On Tuesday the prime minister made his fifth visit to the north Kent constituency. He stressed four times that Tolhurst was a “strong local candidate” and warned that a vote for Ukip would take the country a step closer to the “instability, insecurity and the danger of Ed Miliband” in Downing Street.
The Tories are braced for the possibility of more defections if Reckless wins, especially given that any switchers would probably not have to fight a byelection this close to next May.
Asked what he would say to any Conservative MP planning to defect to Ukip, Cameron said such a move would be “entirely counter-productive” as only he could deliver an EU referendum.
Labour, which is likely to come third in the contest, said Cameron was failing in a “must-win seat for the Tories to be in government after the next election”. Lucy Powell, Labour’s new chief election co-ordinator, said it was the kind of seat that her party could only win if it was heading for a 1997-style victory at the general election. “For us it’s a landslide seat, not a majority seat,” she said.
Although Labour held the seat of Medway for 13 years until the last election, Powell said the demographics since a boundary change made it much less favourable to Labour.
“In byelections you tend to get squeezed outside the two main contenders. Here you are seeing that squeeze [for Labour] as the third party in this contest,” she said.
