Tory nerves in Essex as timber merchant Huntman seeks to carve out a Ukip win
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Version 0 of 1. Beneath the cosy murmur of drinkers inside Benfleet Conservative Club, all is not as it perhaps should be on a rainy afternoon in the semi-marginal Essex constituency of Castle Point, held since 2010 by the Tory Rebecca Harris. “If it came down to the individual she wouldn’t get my vote,” said Paul Drummond, 70, sipping a pint with his friend Reg Burdett, 71, under the gaze of Churchill, his portrait draped with a St George’s flag. While both men stress they will still be voting Conservative (“to keep Labour and the SNP out”), discontent even among such veteran Tory supporters comes at a time when the party has reason to sweat about a determined Ukip challenge here. It’s also significant for other reasons. Ukip candidate Jamie Huntman is tipped by some in the party as a potential future leader, while Castle Point itself is something of a Ukip bellwether. If it wins here then Ukip is likely to have been able to win a handful of parliamentary seats by concentrating resources in Kent and Essex targets. They have work to do, though. After putting both parties at almost neck and neck in Castle Point last February, an Ashcroft poll on Monday put Ukip and the Tories on 36% and 41%, respectively. A 46-year-old local timber merchant who became a Ukip councillor in 2013, Huntman revels in a self-identified “outsider” status. While lacking Nigel Farage’s flamboyance, he comes with an easy-going self-assurance and fondness for the metaphor of a small businessman taking on a perceived political elite. A Conservative voter after leaving school (“the rest is a blur”), Margaret Thatcher impressed but the modern Tory party is “out of touch”. Speaking at his election office on Canvey Island, a reclaimed piece of the Thames Estuary with a seaside resort past and a significance of sorts as the home of pub rockers Dr Feelgood, he says: “The likes of Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron ... they’re into large multinational corporate organisations. They don’t give two hoots about small businesses like me and the reason they don’t is because they don’t live in the real world.” An overwhelmingly white, lower middle class section of the London commuter belt, Castle Point is characterised by high levels of home ownership. For long a solid Tory seat, it was swept up in the 1997 New Labour tide, before turning blue again in 2001. Both Ukip and the Tories cite immigration as an issue coming up on the doorsteps. Bemoaning a “lack of integration” in London, Huntman adds: “People say immigration doesn’t affect you in this part of Essex. But let’s be clear ... a lot of people have migrated here because there is a similar community to what there once was in the East End. In Barking when I grew up there was a community, now it’s probably 10 or 12 communities side by side, not together.” Related: Election 2015: UK leaders in last dash for support as campaign enters final straight The battle now is a fraught one, with Ukip and the Tories accusing each other of ripping down posters. Harris has also been canvassing hard – aided by visits from William Hague, Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith. Insisting that she has a strong record as a visible constituency MP, she adds: “They [Ukip] are clearly trying to push this notion of some sort of ‘Westminster elite’ type person who is out of touch, and I don’t think that’s working, because people know me and I have been very visible.” Her 20 years in business after graduating from LSE – rising from driver to director at a publishing company – have, she says, been “obliterated” by her opponents who prefer to create a “myth” and dwell on her time as a special adviser in opposition. Later on, Huntman arrives in his purple and yellow branded Smart car at a supermarket to join some of the 30 Ukip activists canvassing locally, including more than a dozen members of Ukip’s youth wing staying in the constituency as part of an East Coast Action Weekend, as well as the party’s candidates from Edinburgh South and Camberwell and Peckham. They encounter mixed results among shoppers being offered plastic bags containing Ukip literature, although there’s a more receptive audience from pensioners Jan and Ron Duchemin, who moved from London 20 years ago after “losing everything” in the 1980s. “We’re just fed up with everything being taken away from us,” says Ron, a former taxi driver who adds that he and his wife are unable to get a council house.Asked how things can be made better, he adds. “I’m going to be honest about it. We have too many people coming in without proper qualifications.” Both said they will “think about” voting for Ukip. Despite the poll lag, such encounters continue to encourage Huntman, who insists his party have “a real opportunity” in Castle Point (he happens to have timed how long it takes to get to Westminster: 50 minutes). Harris meanwhile appears nervous, if quietly optimistic, adding: “People are now focusing on what this election means, which is who you want to govern Britain for the next five years, so I think the protest element is falling away.” |