When she was selected as the Conservative candidate for the Devon constituency of Totnes in 2009, after a groundbreaking public postal ballot, Sarah Wollaston hoped – perhaps optimistically – that it signalled the start of new era of open, positive politics. It isn’t entirely working out like that. Almost a decade after winning the seat, Wollaston is facing the threat of deselection courtesy of a barbed, insidious campaign by Brexiters.
In recent weeks, many of her Totnes constituents have received Facebook messages from the rightwing businessman and Ukip backer Arron Banks’s Leave.EU campaign, describing the MP as “Slippery Sarah” and urging supporters of Brexit to join the local Conservative association – and then deselect her. The “blue wave” campaign, as Leave.EU has dubbed it, has to be taken seriously. The Totnes association has seen a jump in applications for membership and Wollaston is preparing for a fight.
She can rely on the support of many. On market day in Totnes, the hilly town renowned as a centre of alternative cool in the south-west of England, most locals appeared to back her. Jacqi Hodgson, a Green party councillor, described the campaign against Wollaston as bizarre. “I have huge respect for the fact that Sarah is one of those politicians who put their constituents and the greater good first. We need politicians who are genuine. She’s grown into the job and got more and more outspoken.”
Jules, a single mother who declined to give her surname, said she had been hugely impressed with Wollaston when she went to her with a housing problem. “I’ve never voted Tory but I probably would next time just because of how kind and strong she is,” said Jules. “I think there’d be an outcry if they tried to get rid of her.”
Jonathan Cooper, a barrister who earlier this year lightheartedly launched a “Totnes passport” aimed at those who wished to remain a part of the EU, said the main point about Wollaston was that she was a very good local MP. He reeled off issues she had intervened in, ranging from racist graffiti to a road damaged by the “beast from the east” storm. “People would miss her and mind if she was forced out,” he said.
Online, however, it is easy to find Wollaston critics apparently prepared to back the deselection plot. One, Jim, described himself as a moderate local Conservative voter but wrote on Facebook to Wollaston: “You can’t ride roughshod over your core Conservative vote, like me and not expect to face deselection.” Another, Jackie, said: “I am fed up of re-moaners wishing to disregard the result of the referendum we have already had on the grounds that people like me did…
