"There’s nothing about her that I disagree with — it's a bizarre situation," said Liberal Democrat Tim Walker about his Labour opponent in Canterbury, Rosie Duffield, who is standing for reelection.
"It gives me no particular pleasure to be standing against somebody quite so decent as Rosie," he continued, "but the answer isn’t me running off. Clearly if I did that, the Lib Dems would put up another candidate — they mean business, they’re not playing around here."
Just 24 hours after this interview with BuzzFeed News on Monday evening, Walker did quit the contest — saying he had suffered sleepless nights, worrying he was handing the ultra-marginal Kent seat to the Conservatives by taking votes from pro-Remain Duffield.
Praise for his decision from Remain supporters quickly turned to horror, however, as Lib Dem HQ indeed wasted no time in replacing him with another candidate.
The drama that has played out in this cathedral city in south-east England this week has become emblematic of a national struggle that is emerging across the country in this general election campaign: the absence of a proper Remain alliance that could see the next Parliament become pro-Brexit by default.
Former Labour MPs who have long fought to remain in the EU are warning they are at real risk of being ousted from marginal seats by the Conservatives, because pro-Remain Liberal Democrats are refusing to give them a clear run. Local Lib Dems are now resigning in protest at leader Jo Swinson’s strategy, and in Canterbury, many Lib Dem members will be actively campaigning for Labour’s Duffield.
While the Lib Dems have agreed a pact in 60 seats with the Green Party and Plaid Cymru to stand down candidates for each other to help get more Remainer MPs, they have been rebuffed by Labour who refuse to do any deals. Swinson said this has left her no choice but to stand Lib Dems against Labour candidates, no matter how personally dedicated they are to stopping Brexit.
But she has faced deep anger from Remainers this week who accuse her of putting her party’s interest above that of the country. Others place the blame on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for failing to realise the huge consequences his refusal to get involved could have for the country.
The situation has been brought to a head by Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage’s decision to stand down half his candidates to help former Tory MPs hold onto their seats. It doesn’t go as far as the Conservatives would have liked — most will still face opposition in seats they would like to gain from Labour — but it proves that some form of comprehensive Brexit alliance has been possible.
In a further twist, the Brexit Party candidate in Canterbury failed to get on the ballot paper — despite Farage's insistence his party would fight the seat "come what may" — because he was on holiday when the nomination papers were due. It means the Conservative candidate, former Vote Leave activist Anna Firth, has a clear run against two pro-Remain parties.
Duffield’s narrow win in the 2017 snap election was widely seen as the biggest shock of the night; she beat Tory Julian Brazier by just 187 votes which spelt the end of his 30-year career as MP for Canterbury and overturned almost a century of Conservative rule in the constituency.
It’s clear that in seats like this, the lack of a Remain deal for the upcoming election could make all the difference. BuzzFeed News visited the constituency to meet the candidates at the centre of a political storm and spoke to local anti-Brexit activists who say they are angry and ultimately tired of Westminster games impacting on their lives.
Walker, a journalist at the New European newspaper, did not have an auspicious start to his political career; as soon as he tweeted on Nov. 1 that he was standing as Canterbury’s Lib Dem candidate, he faced an online backlash from Remain supporters who warned he would split their vote and hand victory to the Tories.
It was not what he had expected; he admits that he seriously misjudged the level of local support for Duffield. When he was being lined up for the job over the summer, he believed he had a genuine chance of winning Canterbury for the Lib Dems, he told BuzzFeed News. His selection was put on hold for a number of weeks in the autumn as the Lib Dems attempted to work out a deal with the local Labour party, which came to nothing.
But after his candidacy was announced, and he had properly met Duffield, Walker began to regret his decision to stand. It was a meeting with local Lib Dem members in a pub last Sunday that marked the beginning of the end for him. More than a dozen people turned up to discuss Walker’s campaign and grabbed a table outside in the garden for privacy, where an enormous Vietnamese pot-bellied pig happened to be wandering around.
One after another, party members told Walker it was inevitable that a Lib Dem candidate was going to attract some pro-Remain votes away from Duffield — and in such a marginal seat, the risk of the Tories winning was very real. Some pointed out that independent-minded MPs such as Duffield, who are willing to defy their leader, were essential in the new parliament which would be "tougher than ever before".
There was some talk of Walker becoming a "paper candidate" by staying in London, not going to the hustings, not canvassing, and heavily supporting Duffield in media interviews. Walker then asked for a show of hands: Who wanted him to carry on as a candidate? Only one or two hands went up. Walker’s was not among them.
The local group then rang up the regional headquarters with the result of the vote, and eventually, Walker spoke to party president Sal Brinton who urged him to stay on. She underlined the fact that the Lib Dems had sought a deal with Labour but had been rejected, and said the Canterbury race was "part of something much bigger" and no Lib Dem candidate was allowed to withdraw.
Walker was initially persuaded to stay but then looked at the tactical voting websites including Gina Miller’s Remain United, which urges people against Brexit in Canterbury to vote Labour.
"I hadn’t slept at all on Monday night and I got up on Tuesday and I thought: 'What’s the point?'" he said. "I could have been a total phoney. I could have sat here in my home in London and done nothing. I just thought I would be an increasing laughing stock. I had such high hopes for the campaign, I was going to do it 100%."
He saves his real anger for Corbyn for failing to consider a deal with other parties for the sake of the country. "When this election is over, when people look back at it, they will think the massive strategic mistake was Corbyn not entering into the Remain alliance," he said. "He’s stuck in the past — he still thinks the Liberal Democrats are a little party that don’t matter. Corbyn’s tragedy is that he lacks imagination, he can’t see that the world is changing."
Walker has been replaced with Claire Malcolmson, a district councillor and jazz singer from Dorking, Surrey, who is expected to keep a fairly low profile during the campaign. But a number of activists raised concerns that even if she doesn’t show her face in the constituency, having her name on the ballot paper means she will still attract a number of votes from people who don’t follow local politics and have always voted Lib Dem.
Duffield, however, is confident that many local Lib Dems will vote Labour this time round. "I promised them I would fight to Remain and for a People’s Vote and I have, they can see I haven’t let them down, and they are still really supportive because of that," she told BuzzFeed News.
She leapt to Swinson’s defence on Twitter after the Lib Dem leader suffered a torrent of abuse over her decision to stand a candidate in Canterbury. Swinson has explained that while Duffield was "absolutely great", she was standing on a manifesto to put Corbyn into Number 10: "That is not what we can support."
"I don’t like the way people have piled in on Jo as if it’s personal," Duffield said. "This is the way that politics is and that’s what’s broken, it’s not her personally being mean to me. I can understand why people are angry but we’re trying to change the way we talk to each other and trying to change politics."
It is no secret that Duffield and Swinson are good friends: Rumours swirled during conference season that Duffield, exasperated with Labour’s Brexit indecisiveness and failure to tackle anti-Semitism, was about to jump ship. Duffield insists she has been a "Labour voter and supporter all my life and the core values and history of the party are all I know". But she refuses to say more about any conversations she might have had with Swinson on a possible defection.
Duffield also defends Labour’s refusal to engage in a Remain alliance. “That isn’t how we do politics in Britain at the moment, is it?” she said. “But we need to look at the system – 1.8 million people across Kent did not all vote Conservative and yet I’m the only opposition MP, so something isn’t quite working.
“It is frustrating for the electorate and I really don’t believe the majority in Britain want Boris Johnson to be prime minister, but yet again by default we may well end up having him.”
The election in Canterbury will be a fascinating test of public opinion as Duffield — a staunch Remainer who quit Labour’s front bench over Brexit — takes on Firth, a Brexiteer who co-chaired Vote Leave’s Women for Britain campaign. Just over 45% of Canterbury’s constituents voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, according to estimates published by the House of Commons library.
Duffield is determined to prove that her short tenure as MP is not just a blip. "The Tories do have that attitude, that this is a seat for them to win back," she said. "But there is no such thing as that, we have moved on since we last had a Tory here."
The constituency spans the city of Canterbury, which now has a population of almost 40,000 students, the coastal town of Whitstable and a number of smaller rural villages. Tories see it as a "true blue" area, but Duffield said many people here feel left behind and a long way from London which, although just 60 miles away, feels like a different world.
BuzzFeed News has spoken to a number of local pro-Remain activists who have raised fears that the split vote will usher in the Tories. Graham Simpson, a retired community safety officer from Whitstable, is a member of the campaign group Canterbury for Europe. He quit his Lib Dem membership when the party announced it would field a candidate against Duffield.
"I just think Canterbury is a particular situation where we have a very strong Remain candidate with a very small majority and I think an exception should have been made here," he said. "I also thought it would be a very good example to Labour voters in places like Richmond [a Tory/Lib Dem marginal] to abandon tribal politics and vote for the candidate most likely to beat the Tory candidate, it would almost give us the moral high ground."
Simpson insists he is "not supporting Labour" but he is "supporting Rosie Duffield who is a committed Remainer". He points the finger at the Labour leadership for the mess in Canterbury. "The other opposition parties are doing their best to work together," he said.
"The Labour party, I’m afraid very arrogantly, is saying 'We don’t do deals, we’re above all that', so they would rather split the vote and allow a Tory to win than enter into a sensible local arrangement. [But] ultimately we want to get Boris Johnson out, and all other considerations should fall by the wayside."
Jack Target, an IT consultant from Canterbury who has been a Lib Dem member for 15 years, said every fellow Lib Dem he has spoken to will vote for Duffield. He thinks the Lib Dem leadership made a mistake by replacing Walker in the contest.
"They should have let Tim’s withdrawal quietly slide and the story would have died down in one hour,” he said. “Instead they’ve created a huge public controversy and a lot of criticism. Even if they didn’t want to look like they were standing down, they could have just come up with some excuse about it being too short notice to do anything about it.”
Target added: "The problem won’t be active Lib Dems in the constituency who obviously follow politics closely, will know Rosie and her record, and will mostly vote tactically. The problem will be people who don’t follow politics closely, who would have been happy to vote for Labour but lean Lib Dem. They might simply vote Lib Dem because of the national campaign, see us on the ballot paper, and split the vote."
Anna Firth, the Conservative candidate, told BuzzFeed News the Tories are fighting hard to win and she feels "quite confident" of victory. Her party is getting a much better reception now than it did in this year’s local and European elections, she insists.
"People are much happier with the Conservatives now than they were in May, they’re happier with Boris Johnson and with the deal and getting Brexit done," she said. "And a lot of Labour supporters are not prepared to back Jeremy Corbyn — they just don’t like him, he doesn’t believe in Britain, he can’t be trusted on the economy, and they don’t trust him to deliver Brexit either."
Firth is a former barrister who lives with her family in Sevenoaks (44 miles away), where she is a councillor, although she is now renting a cottage in Canterbury during the week. She has faced criticism from local Lib Dems about her dedication to the seat, after attempting to stand as an MP in several other places.
In 2009, she reached the Tory shortlist for Orpington, losing out to Jo Johnson; in 2014, she was on the shortlist for Thanet South where she lost to Craig Mackinlay, and later that year she failed to become a candidate for Rochester and Strood, losing to Kelly Tolhurst.
In 2015 she was selected as Tory candidate for Erith and Thamesmead but lost the seat to Labour, and earlier this year she attempted to become the Tory candidate in South Cambridgeshire.
Firth said it is an "extraordinary" line of attack because it’s not unusual to stand in a number of places before getting elected: "Mrs Thatcher stood twice in Dartford — she did, I think, 25 selections before she was selected, and Theresa May did 19 selections.
"Most MPs fight a losing seat first … I haven’t stood in 10 different places all over the country, I’ve stood in the south-east and twice in Kent."
She also defends her decision to stand in Canterbury where she has never lived before: "I don’t have any preconceived ideas about any areas or any prejudices or innate emotional ties to that school or that hospital or GP surgery, everyone is equal."
Did she have any ties to the area before being selected? "My nieces went to school in Canterbury and my son used to have violin lessons up near Whitstable."
Firth, who once appeared in the BBC Question Time audience calling on the Tories to support a Brexit deal, is hopeful that the Lib Dem candidate will give her a boost by splitting the Remain vote in the constituency.
"Like them or loathe them, the Lib Dems do have a clear position in this election," she said. "I do respect parties that decide what they’ll stand for and stand for it. But I don’t agree with it [stopping Brexit], I think it’s utterly undemocratic."
"As a Brexiteer, it seems to me that it's not perfect, there are other things I wanted, but we have to come together" This audience member is supportive of the White Paper, as she thinks it delivers what she wanted from Brexit #bbcqt
Firth appeared in the Question Time audience in 2018.
Firth rejects the idea that she is a Brexit "no dealer", insisting: "The Lib Dems are trying to paint me as some extreme, far-right, Vote Leave stalwart Brexiteer — I did vote Leave and I did campaign for Leave but I actually supported Theresa May’s deal.
"We won by 52% not 92%, I think a fair compromise is what we should be looking to achieve to bring the country back together. Of course we want to leave with an orderly deal."
Duffield said that her own resignation from the front bench over Brexit began to prompt a change of heart from Labour over its policy, and she is pleased now that Corbyn supports a second referendum after a new EU negotiation.
"The policy was confusing and it’s now quite simple," Duffield said. "We do have those traditional northern seats that do still want to leave – they get to vote for that but they get to do it in a way that isn’t going to destroy the country, in a deal we put to the people. Of course, I’m going to vote for and campaign for Remain."
But isn’t it a problem with voters that Corbyn cannot say whether he is personally for or against Remain? "Whatever he says, people always say he’s lying, so probably saying nothing is the best position. He’s the leader, he doesn’t have to say one way or another and he’s got to represent everyone in the party."
Duffield said Brexit actually "hardly ever" comes up on the doorstep and more people are interested in "hyper-local" issues like street lighting and parking. "We call this the Brexit election but not everyone cares as much about it as we do," she said.
One thing that does come up every now and then, however, is Labour’s anti-Semitism problem. The topic is even raised by one rough sleeper at a homeless shelter in Canterbury when BuzzFeed News accompanies Duffield on a visit.
Duffield sparked a major row with local Labour members last year when she attended a rally against anti-Semitism and spoke at the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) conference. "There are lots of us who are determined to see it stamped out in the Labour party entirely – it’s not good enough, we shouldn’t be in this situation," she said.
"I went on the march and I thought sod it, gloves are off, and I went to the JLM rallies and their conference and there’s a circuit now, there’s a few of us that go and speak out about it. It’s just right and wrong, it’s not right and left, that’s what I try and get across."
Corbyn supporters were furious at Duffield’s stance, accusing her of disloyalty. "The idea that I’m anti-Jeremy if I’m anti-anti-Semitism is just ridiculous," she said. "Why on earth are those people saying if I speak out about anti-Semitism I’m therefore attacking Jeremy? I’m saying it’s not good enough in any institution. And we need to do better.
"We have been way too slow to investigate complaints. In my opinion the minute you read an anti-Semitic tweet you should investigate, I still cannot understand why it takes a year or two years ... just stop that person, disassociate them from the party."
Duffield grew up in London but moved to Canterbury 20 years ago to raise her two sons (now aged 20 and 16) as a single parent. She worked as a teaching assistant and for charities and was writing political comedy when she became chair of the local Labour party. In 2015 she failed to win a seat on Canterbury City Council; two years later she became the city’s MP.
For many outside the Westminster bubble, Duffield rose to prominence last month when she gave a highly personal speech in the Commons about her own experience of domestic abuse. In it she detailed how she had been subjected to coercive control and had often felt trapped in her office, terrified to go home. It was an extraordinary moment that led to a standing ovation and prompted Speaker John Bercow to say it was "simultaneously horrifying and as moving a contribution" as any he had heard in the chamber.
"I haven’t watched that back, I had to work very hard not to sit there crying the whole time," she said. "It was very nice to be so supported, but I couldn’t have imagined the reaction it had."
Duffield hopes it has helped women in a similar situation recognise that they are in an abusive relationship. "Some of the emails have said 'Now I realise I can’t stay, I can’t put up with that, I’m being undermined all the time''," she said. "It’s like when you watch soap opera storylines and you think 'Oh that’s me'. That was the case for me as well – friends had to say 'What’s going on?'"
She said she asked Bercow in advance whether she could speak early in the debate on the Domestic Abuse Bill. "I thought I’d rather go early because I might chicken out if I was sitting in this chamber for four or five hours waiting to speak, I would have lost my nerve," she said. "Also the tradition is you stay two speeches after you’ve spoken. I said to him [Bercow] 'If I do this speech, which is quite personal, I might need to leave, I might be upset' and he said 'I hope you’ll feel you can stay but I understand if you don’t'. He was just incredibly kind."
Duffield had only been elected two and a half years earlier, in the snap election that saw the Tories’ slim majority disappear as Labour rode a surge in support that most commentators didn’t see coming. She said she stood in the election "as a practice", never daring to hope she could win. "I thought I can do this properly when there’s a real election," she said. And then polls started to show she was neck and neck with her Tory rival Brazier.
"I said to my children 'Sorry but it’s out there that I might win and I’m going to have to tweet that kind of thing' and they said 'Oh you might win' and I said 'No it’s just polls, don’t worry, in a million years I am not going to win this seat'," she said. “And they got really excited at the prospect and people around me were really believing it and I just thought I’m going to let them all down, it’s never going to happen. And then it did.
"I was in total shock. Literally my campaign manager said to me 'Have you written a speech?' I said no, and he took me outside and said: 'You’re just going to have to realise that this is going to happen'. And I burst into tears, went into the loo, was sick, had loads of friends around me saying, 'It’s ok, it’s alright'."
This time round, Duffield is better prepared for victory. But she not only faces a tough fight against the Conservatives, but an almighty battle to persuade Lib Dems to back her too.