'Boris factor' fails to win over faithful in ex-Mayor's backyard as Tory voters in Uxbridge and South Ruislip turn to Brexit Party

On the streets of Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, there is no shortage of disillusioned Conservatives.

There are also few signs that the “Boris factor” will help shore up the Tory vote in this deeply suburban slice of London’s most westerly borough.

Some will not turn out to vote at all, but many others will lend their vote to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party .

Hillingdon was one of just five London boroughs that voted Leave in the 2016 referendum, with 56.36 per cent of votes cast in favour of Britain’s exit from the European Union.

For Peter Moorhouse, a Leave-supporting retired ambulance driver, “these elections are a complete and utter waste of time, an absolute joke, they haven’t listened to the people”.

Mr Moorhouse, 66, was a life-long Tory voter up until Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 snap election, when he backed Ukip.

He said: “I think Boris is good in some respects but he is a bit of blunderbuss, all huff and puff. All the parties deserve what they get in this election, they should all have been sacked long ago.

"We were in a shop the other day just trying to buy a light bulb. I wanted a 60 watt bulb, but no, the EU have ruled them out and now I have to buy an LED one. If the Government can’t stop a simple thing like that, how are they going to sort out something as complex as Brexit? I’ve been tearing out what hair I’ve got left.

“If I’m going to vote for anyone at this stage it would be Nigel Farage — ever since I watched him a few days ago taking on the MEPs.”

His wife Lesley, 63, a retired purchasing manager, agrees: “I think Farage will do well round here. If I was to vote in this EU thing I would vote Farage.”

Another former Tory who did not want to give his name said he was so disillusioned he will not bother to turn out tomorrow.

“The decision has been made, why are we voting for these people? We’re not supposed to be in any more. People are not legally obliged to vote. I think we’re having the mickey taken out of us big time. As for another referendum — what sort of country would it be if you can lose an election and then a few weeks later say, ‘Oh hang on, we didn’t like that, we’re going to have another go.’ ”

But if Uxbridge looks like unpromising territory for the Conservatives, nor is there much comfort for Labour. The two parties hoovered up almost 91 per cent of the vote in the 2017 general election but will be lucky to garner a fraction of that this time.

Exasperated Remainers are letting go of long-held party allegiances.

Retired chemistry teacher Arthur Farrow, 69, who has lived in Uxbridge since 1987, said he has “always voted Labour but this has made it rather difficult”.

He added: “Of course these elections should be happening — anyone who voted Leave in the referendum needs their head replaced with a turnip.

“St Paul said civis romanus sum — I am a Roman citizen. Well I am a European citizen. I feel shame for our country because of how many people regard we Remainers as traitors. The people who watched Dad’s Army and Colditz and Secret Army in the Seventies are all just saying ‘let’s go back to when we were great’.”

Emily Mullin, 20, an education student at UCL who lives in Uxbridge, was too young to vote in the referendum but “would have voted to stay” and said Boris “dropped us in it big time”. She said she has rarely seen her MP in the constituency but hears “he goes to primary schools a lot”.

She has not yet decided where her vote will go but is concerned about European workers returning home as her father owns a small business in the building trade that has already lost a number of disillusioned Polish workers.

The constituency includes Brunel University, where the Lib Dems lost almost all support from students in the wake of their U-turn on tuition fees during the Coalition years.

But according to Dr Elizabeth Evenden-Kenyon, who has taught at the university for 20 years, and is now the party’s prospective candidate for the parliamentary constituency, young people are flooding back.

She said: “When I go out in the rain I wear a bright yellow raincoat with ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ stickers all over it. I used to get a lot of grief about it but now people come up to me and say ‘You know, you’re right.’”