The Battle For Dover And Deal Is About More Than Stopping The Boats

“The place isn’t that bad, you know,” a barista tells PoliticsHome, as she sweeps the floor while tourists and locals fill up the café on a sunny Thursday afternoon.

The constituency of Dover and Deal is a tale of two towns. The former has a host of unoccupied units waiting to be filled with retail businesses, while the latter’s high street remains a tourist hotspot. Dover has a child poverty rate of 35 per cent, whereas Deal was regarded by The Sunday Times as one of the most desirable places to live in the UK.

The seat, which has become a bellwether since 1997, has become synonymous with small boats. The issue affects voters in Dover acutely; they can see RNLI boats rescue and take in thousands of migrants each year.

A YouGov survey in January found 42 per cent of people wanted migrants who arrived on small boats to be removed “immediately” from the UK. Labour, Conservatives and Reform have made cast-iron promises to reduce small boat numbers across the Channel.

“It’s the immigrants,” one voter told PoliticsHome, after she was asked what the most pressing issue was for her at the next election on 4 July. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out to “stop the boats” as one of his five pledges in January 2023, where he has invested political capital in pushing through his Rwanda Bill through the House of Commons.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has claimed he would scrap the scheme and instead “smash the gangs” and people traffickers at the source. Meanwhile Nigel Farage has said Reform UK would pull out of the ECHR and push the boats back.

A YouGov MRP poll in June suggested Labour were set to take the seat back by 21 percentage points on 4 July. More high-profile visits are expected to take place prior to the election on 4 July as the