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Home Canterbury News Article
A pro-remain campaign group has urged voters in Canterbury to swing behind Labour in an election if they want to halt Brexit.
The People's Vote is urging tactical voting in constituencies to improve the prospects of returning a Commons majority that favours "remain".
It has identified a small list of Labour constituencies where it will endorse individual pro-referendum candidates who are "best placed" to win.
Canterbury is among the 11 and is the only Kent seat to be identified as one where tactical voting is endorsed.
However, the group's suggested support is dependent on the current MP Rosie Duffield remaining Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate.
While she has already signalled she wishes to stand again, the local association has not yet gone through its selection process.
Under party rules on selection, the sitting MP can be either re-adopted automatically or the party has a fully open selection process in which other candidates can be shortlisted.
Labour is defending a wafer-thin majority of 187 after securing an historic victory in the seat in 2017, ousting the long-standing Conservative MP Julian Brazier.
In the 2016 referendum 51% of voters in Canterbury backed leave.
The People's Vote insists it has cross-party political support and boasts more than 700,000 campaign supporters, alongside 20,000 activists.
In a statement, the People's Vote campaign said: "Decisions will not be based on any one poll or a single election result.
"If there are electoral pacts between parties, these will be taken into account. If the polls change, these will be factored in too.
"The campaign will inevitably have to take final decisions later in some seats or change its advice, as more information becomes available about candidates' positions and up-to-date polling data is published."
The selection of a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Canterbury was temporarily put on hold after local party chiefs were told not to go ahead with the selection process.
