By Josh Graham
December 13 2019, 11.00
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Sir Ed Davey’s victorious Liberal Democrat campaign in Kingston and Surbiton was labelled ‘dirty’ and twice reported to the police by the losing Green candidate.
Sharron Sumner was not one of the 40 Green candidates who stood aside as part of the Unite to Remain Alliance and bemoaned underhand tactics from the successful Liberal Democrats.
Ms Sumner received 1,038 votes and finished fourth in the polling in Kingston and Surbiton, behind Sir Ed, Aphra Brandreth of the Conservatives and Leanne Werner from the Labour Party.
She said: “It has been a dirty campaign from the Lib Dems.
“It’s a real shame, we’ve had to report the Lib Dem campaign to the police twice.
“The problem that we’ve had I would say in the majority of non-Unite to Remain areas is that we have faced an unethical squeeze from the Liberal Democrats. It has been terrible.”
Ms Sumner suggested she would have been happy to stand aside if Sir Ed had made certain concessions on environment policy but these were not forthcoming.
She added: “We approached the Lib Dems to see if we could get some policy changes within the borough and then we would step down but they flatly refused to even speak to us.”
Ms Sumner reported the Lib Dems to the police after misleading letters were posted to constituents.
She said: “There was a letter that went out called the Mike Smithson letter which said that the Green Party supported the Liberal Democrats and suggested that we were standing down in this area which obviously wasn’t true.
“Letters were sent suggesting it would be close, it was never close, they were always going to monster this constituency.
“We all knew it and I think it was slightly unethical to squeeze our voters to that degree, but that’s politics.”
When the claims of illegality were put to Sir Ed Davey after his victory, he dismissed their validity.
He said: “You can ask the police, it would be interesting to see what their answer would be.
“You can report lots of people to the police but if you have got nothing to answer then the police will say nothing.”
The Metropolitan Police Service said: “In relation to the 2019 General Election, to date we have received 52 allegations.
“We will not comment on individual cases.”
