We meet new MP on frontline of Kent’s small boats crisis (2024)

The image of a military veteran in politics is often that of a corduroy-wearing, countryside-dwelling Tory.

So a 39-year-old long-time Labour member does not conventionally fit the bill.

New Dover and Deal MP Mike Tapp was pounding the pavement on the campaign trail for more than two years before he was elected earlier this month.

With Labour support on the rise nationally and the Conservative vote slumping, he was the hot favourite to take the seat.

But he took no chances, with Facebook advertising and high production-value adverts on YouTube videos helping him secure a comfortable majority of more than 7,500.

His nomination papers listed his home address as being in the Tunbridge Wells constituency and, to many, that area feels a different world to Dover.

But Mr Tapp says he carefully considered where he could make most difference.

“I was thinking about where I would be best suited, but also areas that I love,” he explained.

“We used to holiday a lot down in the area so I know it and also visited often.

“So it ticked the box of ‘do I love the area?’ and ‘where do I think needs Labour more than some others?’

“And because of some of the issues around borders, deprivation, the high street, healthcare and those sorts of things, Dover and Deal jumped out.”

Dover’s new MP served on three tours in the Army, across both Iraq and Afghanistan, and later worked for the National Crime Agency, and in counter-terrorism for the Ministry of Defence.

With its prominent military history, and longstanding cultural association with Britain’s efforts in the Second World War, Mr Tapp was conscious his background “could be well received” by his constituents.

He also believes his experience will prove not only “relevant to policing and anti-social behaviour, but also securing the borders”.

Dover’s high street is in many ways archetypal of coastal decline.

The huge building which once hosted McDonald’s has laid mostly barren for years, and many shops come and go with the seasons.

The constituency’s new representative believes his party has the solutions to the high street’s woes, which start with “looking at planning laws and making it easy for communities and councils to take over buildings”.

“If you look around the edge of the high street – not on it but around the edge of it – there’s far too many units that continuously fail with these shops that clearly aren’t viable,” he said.

“So if that continues, we need to turn those into housing and that can be either council housing, social housing or private housing.

“What that does then is it chips away at the housing crisis that we’re experiencing but it also brings people into the town, and those businesses that are viable on the high street will have a higher footfall.”

Mr Tapp also suggests reforms to business rates “to take some of the burden away from small business and onto the online giants and make it easier for those small independent businesses”.

To the chagrin of many Dover residents, the town only seems to appear in the national headlines as the terminus of many illegal journeys into the country on small boats.

The area voted 62% to leave the EU in 2016, on a hulking turnout of 76%, and overwhelmingly voted for the Tories in 2019.

Reform came second in the election this July, beating the Tories, but still trailing Mr Tapp by more than 7,500.

Immigration isn’t the only issue in town, but clearly inspires the interest of residents.

“We don’t need or want fully open borders - you have to have secure borders, that’s the first duty of government,” Mr Tapp stresses.

“It doesn’t make you a bad person seeking a better life, but the nature of our economy and infrastructure means we can't have open borders.

“What residents do want to see is firstly secure borders, but secondly an immigration system that actually works.

“Having thousands and thousands backlogged waiting two to three years for decisions is going to be costly for the taxpayer, but also I believe it to be quite degrading for those waiting on decisions, because they can’t work, they’re taking about £5 a day, I think it is, and that’s not a very nice way to live.

“It is actually compassionate and humane to secure the borders so people don’t die in the Dover Straits and in The Channel, but also speeding up the processing of those that do arrive because then we can deport those who aren’t genuine refugees and give the help to those that are.”

Mr Tapp also sings the praises of the new Labour government’s Border Security Command.

“We’re setting up already the Border Security Command that will bring in new powers; for example, those that MI5 have with counter-terror to make sure we can bring to bear all of the tools that we need to take out the smuggling gangs.

“If you reduce the possibility of people actually getting on the boats then of course you start to bring those numbers down.”

Dover has long been a bellwether seat - it usually votes for the party which ends up in government.

The seat was Labour from 1997-2010, and Tory from 2010 until 2024, notwithstanding the former Tory MP Natalie Elphicke’s shock defection to Labour in May.

With Labour overturning a huge Tory majority nationally, but on the lowest turnout in decades, many think Labour’s grip on power is not as firm as it seems - so seats like Dover could be changeable at the next election.

Mr Tapp seems keen to manage expectations, as does his party.

“We’ve been really clear that these things don’t happen overnight, we do need a decade of national renewal,” he said.

“My understanding from residents is that they understand that – they see that if we overpromise we’re only going to underdeliver.

“Instead what they want is serious policies with long-term plans, and that’s what we’ll deliver.”