General Election 2015: Battle for Thurrock turns nasty as Ukip plays race card

Community relations have been poisoned by the fierce three-way battle for the Essex seat

Ukip candidate for Thurrock, Tim Aker, campaigns with his party's leader, Nigel Farage (Getty Images)

Of all the seats being fought in this election the three-way battle to win the Essex conurbation of Thurrock is perhaps the closest three-way fight of them all. And it is also one of the most unpleasant.

“We have had to go round once a week to replace all our posters because there has been a systematic campaign vandalising them and destroying them,” says Jackie Doyle-Price the incumbent Conservative candidate who is defending a majority of just 92 against Labour and an insurgent Ukip campaign.

“Vote Ukip. Tory scum. Pictures of phalluses. That’s the kind of thing we’re seeing. We know it is systematic because it’s the same handwriting on a lot of the graffiti.

“We had one last week. We put the poster up at one o’clock and by three o’clock someone had kicked through my head.”

Labour and Ukip also complain that some of their posters have disappeared and in some cases been vandalised.

“It’s not good but we just get on, get our heads down and campaign to win,” said Michael Heaver who is helping to run Tim Aker’s campaign for Ukip.

It is perhaps no surprise that the issue of race has never been far from the surface in this campaign.

In 2010 the BNP polled over 7 per cent here while Ukip took another 7 per cent of the vote. Grays, the town at the centre of the constituency, has a growing ethnic minority population – not of recent Eastern European immigrants – but people who have moved out of London to an area where they can afford to buy.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, joins Jackie Doyle-Price, the Tory candidate in Thurrock (Getty) (Getty Images)

Tunde Ojetola, a Conservative councillor, said many people he spoke to were concerned about the tenor of the campaign which was worrying to the ethnic minority population in particular.

“My 13-year-old son asked me out of the blue the other day, ‘Will we have to leave the country if Ukip win?’

“Then I was talking to a Sri Lankan lady who said her son had asked her something very similar.

“It is creating an atmosphere of fear and concern across the community which is very damaging.”

Talking to ethnic minority voters on the main shopping street in Grays, they articulate similar worries.

“There is a perception among a lot of people that the BNP are disguising themselves as Ukip,” said Ronny Jacobs.

“We had dinner the other night with quite a few people in the community and there were a lot of concern about what is happening. We want this to be a multicultural community.”

Mr Jacobs added he thought that the people he knew would be voting Labour rather than Conservative in an attempt to arrest the rise of Ukip – but admits the race will be tight.

A Ukip poster on display in Thurrock, England (Getty) (Getty Images)

“I think some of us still think about Thatcher when you talk about the Tories. The last Labour government was just less stressful for ethnic minorities.”

Tim Johnson agreed. “I think Ukip are a little bit racist in their policies – especially over Europe. I don’t think I know anyone who will be supporting them.”

Ukip denies playing the race card among the traditional white working-class voters in outlying parts of the constituency but there have been allegations that the party has been attempting to capitalise on the fear of immigration to win votes.

“We were out last night in what is Ukip’s strongest area,” said one Tory campaigner.

“I knocked on a door and basically they’ve been round telling people that the housing estate that is being built nearby is going to be full of immigrants.

“That’s the message that they’re giving and it’s really unpleasant. We’ve had the BNP here and I think Ukip are worse in terms of their rhetoric.”

The Labour candidate Polly Billington is reluctant to discuss Ukip at all. But Labour sources insisted the party was challenging Ukip’s rhetoric on the ground.

“We are taking on Ukip and saying that their values are completely at odds with our values and that is why people should support us. Ultimately it is Labour that is going to stop Ukip.”

Jackie Doyle-Price disputes this and says that canvassing suggests that it is the white working-class Labour vote that is responsible for the surge in Ukip support.

But one thing is clear: whoever wins this seat will have a job of work to rebuild community relations after such a bruising, divisive campaign.