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Tory quits party over selection for South Croydon safe seat

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Our south of the borough correspondent, PEARL LEE, reports on acrimony and manoeuvrings among the Conservatives over their choice of by-election candidate

“Are you local?”: the selection of Danielle Denton  as candidate in South Croydon ward has upset some local Tories

Danielle “Dani” Denton has been selected by the Conservatives as their candidate in the South Croydon ward by-election being held on June 30.

But the decision has caused a row in the party locally, with at least one resignation amid complaints that Denton is a “Dani-come-lately”, with little association with the ward, or the borough, and claims that she has been parachuted in from north London.

Jason Cummings, the Tory council cabinet member and former adviser to Theresa May when she was Prime Minister, is accused of exercising undue influence over South Croydon ward as part of his own manoeuvrings for selection as a parliamentary candidate.

Denton stood for the Conservatives in Fairfield in the local elections on May 5 when she finished a lowly seventh in the three-seat ward with just 520 votes – fewer, even, than Labour’s South Croydon candidate, Ben Taylor, mustered for himself in New Addington South.

Dani-come-lately: Denton is regarded as an outsider by some colleagues

Denton was a late switch among the Tory candidates, having not been on their original roster when they announced their 70 names for the local elections in September 2021. According to a source in the local Conservatives, this is because Denton was not even a member of the party until January this year.

But given that South Croydon ward is Tory-held, Denton is reckoned to be the favourite to become the 33rd Conservative councillor at the Town Hall.

The South Croydon ward by-election has been called to fill a vacancy caused because Jason Perry stood to be a councillor as well as being a candidate for executive Mayor. The law prevents the Mayor also being elected as a councillor.

Croydon Conservatives have yet to formally announce Denton, their “property officer”, as the South Croydon by-election candidate.

According to our mole at the Tories’ Purley offices, Conservative activists are “furious” at Cummings for “parachuting in a property entrepreneur based in London N1”.

The source said, “Activists are refusing to work for Denton.”

Denton, 51, has an address in Pollards Hill, and she and her partner, Adam Ingram, led a residents’ campaign there last year to oppose the building of a block of flats on their street. Reports at the time described Denton as having “lived on the street all her life”.

Look East: Jason Cummings is said to have parliamentary ambitions

Another unsuccessful Conservative candidate in the local elections, Kosta Dexiades, has resigned from the party in protest at the “behind the scenes” dealing by the leadership over the selection. And an email being circulated among Croydon Tories questions whether the selection committee may have been misled.

Companies House records show that Denton is the sole director of an estate agency called Burriss and Porcher Ltd which was established in December 2019.

The company has so far filed just one set of accounts, showing assets of less than £20,000.

Denton’s partner, Ingram, is also a company director, of a property maintenance business called Kaizen Maintenance Ltd.

Both Kaizen and Burriss and Porcher have their offices registered at the same north London address: 20-22, Wenlock Road, N1, a service address.

Tory activists are questioning why other, longer-established members, with better service records in the party have been overlooked for what appears to be a safe seat.

One theory is that Cummings, who ran the mayoral campaign for Jason Perry, is trying to build support for his own attempt to be selected as the parliamentary candidate for the proposed new Croydon East seat, expected to be formally unveiled next year, just in time for the next General Election.

To do that, Cummings will need to be chosen ahead of Mario Creatura, his former work colleague in Downing Street who ran, and lost, Croydon Central in 2019.

“Jason will need support from councillors and a few favours,” our source said.

“Which is why some people are trying to persuade Mario to go for Reigate, where Crispin Blunt has announced he’s standing down. After all, Reigate is such a safe Conservative seat, even Mario couldn’t manage to lose it…”

Read more: Labour officials pick ‘worst-ever’ candidate for by-election
Read more: No Overall Control: full election results for Croydon’s 28 wards
Read more: Tory Perry wins historic Mayor election by less than 600 votes


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