Wednesday December 18 | 2019
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Times OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS
PHOTO: Craig Matthews
Tories looking for a ‘Boris Bounce’ to keep them in power at Town Hall
LABOUR:
ANTONIO WEISS 8,098 [11.7%]
LIB DEM
BEN CHAPELARD 15,474 [28.3%]
CONSERVATIVE GREG CLARK 30,119 [55.1%]
RETURNING OFFICER WILLIAM BENSON
INDEPENDENT NIGEL PEACOCK 471 [1%]
INDEPENDENT CHRIS CAMP 488 [1%]
MOMENT OF TRUTH: The five candidates learn their fate when the election results were revealed by Returning Officer William Benson at the Paddock Wood count
By Richard Williams CONSERVATIVES on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council are hoping that a ‘Boris Bounce’ following the General Election will help them keep control during next May’s elections. The party has seen its majority in the chamber slashed from 32 to just six, and overall control will fall if the Conservatives lose any more than three seats at next May’s local elections. Conservatives have ruled the roost since they last lost out to the Lib Dems between 1996-1998. They fear the Lib Dems will take seats from them in May, along with control of the council, when 12 Tory councillors are up for re-election. But Boris Johnson’s honeymoon period may be just enough, they hope, to leave voters with a feel good factor that will make them more inclined to support the Conservatives.
Meanwhile newly elected MP Greg Clark has thanked the voters in Tunbridge Wells for having ‘kept faith’ despite three years of Brexit turmoil, after they overwhelming backed him to be their MP for the fifth time last week. Mr Clark, who secured more than half
‘The Liberal Democrats misjudged the mood of the people’ MP Greg Clark of the vote during last Thursday’s General Election, also assured voters that the EU withdrawal ‘will be a world away from a No Deal Brexit’. He told the Times yesterday: “The thing that surprised me was how stable my vote was, it was almost identical to last time so I think people kept faith.” Despite there being a majority in Tun-
bridge Wells who voted Remain in the EU referendum in 2016, Mr Clark said the Liberal Democrats, who stole second place from Labour following an intense anti-Brexit campaign, had ‘misjudged’ the mood of the people. “There was a sense the people wanted to come together and heal division and not deepen them, and my message was that we should come together with a reasonable compromise. I know Tunbridge Wells very well and I know that is the tenor of the town,” he said. He added the Liberal Democrats, ran a ‘divisive’ and at times ‘a touch personal’ campaign that at one point branded him a ‘hardline Brexiter’ “I think it backfired. The more leaflets the constituents had the more support for my campaign increased,” he said, before praising the Labour candidate, Antonio Weiss, whom he described as ‘impressive’ after securing 15 per cent of the vote, despite a disastrous campaign
for the party nationally. Mr Clark is now one of only four MPs re-elected to the House of Commons out of the original 21 ‘Brexit Rebels’ that lost the party whip after defying Boris Johnson in September, but he insisted there would be no Hard Brexit. “We will have no problem with that. The next step is to ratify the deal that has been negotiated this week and then we will very quickly move to a free trade agreement with the EU. “The Europeans want to get on with it, there is a strong mandate now in the House of Commons to get on with it, so it is very straightforward.” The former Business Secretary added: “There is no possibility of us leaving the EU under WTO [World Trade Organisation] terms. None at all. The agreement will be a world away from a No Deal Brexit.”
Full election coverage on pages 4,6-7