A Conservative parliamentary candidate has been accused of ignoring the biggest political issue facing the country after she refused to tell her local newspaper whether or not she had voted to leave the EU.
Kristy Adams, the Tory candidate in Hove, is trying to unseat Peter Kyle, one of the very few Labour MPs in the south of England outside of London.
In an interview with Brighton and Hove’s Argus paper Ms Adams clumsily tried to dodge a question about which way she had voted during the referendum – and ultimately refused to answer the question at all.
Asked by a local reporter which way she had voted, Ms Adams replied: “I didn’t campaign for the outs and I didn’t campaign for the ins. I think we’ve got to look to the future and that’s what I’m about.”
When the local reporter persisted, asking her to clarify how she had actually voted, she said: “I’ve just said to you I didn’t campaign for the in team and I didn’t campaign for the out team.”
When it was pointed out to Ms Adams that she was not answering the question, she said: “I’m not going to answer that question.”
The newspaper took issue with the candidate’s intransigence, splashing the refusal to answer on its front page.
Ms Adams last hit national headlines when the Daily Mirror obtained a recording of her where she appeared to say she had healed a deaf man through prayer.
Mr Kyle, the sitting Labour MP for the area, said Ms Adams’ decision was “unconscionable”.
“Brexit is the single biggest force that will change and shape our community in the coming years, it is simply unconscionable to me that someone who aspires to represent us could absent themselves from even saying how they voted in such an overwhelmingly important issue to the vast majority of residents in Hove and Portslade,” he told the Huffington Post UK.
The Hove seat was captured by Labour in 2015 with 42.4 per cent of the vote to the Tories 39.9 per cent.
