Mayor James Palmer emphatically denied he visited the home of former Brexit Party candidate Vivienne Robinson to encourage her to stand down.

Mrs Robinson says Mayor Palmer "turned up at my home unannounced at the weekend to try and persuade me not to stand for the Brexit Party".

She said: "At the time I had not been stood down but this concerted campaign by the Conservative Party has been intimidating and unwelcome".

The mayor agrees "I called on Vivienne to speak to her - she wasn't there but abroad".

Pushed on what he wanted to speak about her he added: "It was about something else. "She is surmising that is why I want to speak to her but that is not necessarily the case.

"I speak to many many people on many subjects on a daily basis."

He described as "fantasy" the notion he was there to discuss her candidacy for the Brexit Party -"am I not allowed to go and talk to her about anything?"

Mayor Palmer said he had known Mrs Robinson for many years, lived across the across road from her for 10 years, and he was not visiting her to canvass for the Conservatives.

Pushed as to whether he would have mentioned the Brexit Party or Nigel Farage "is fanciful, he said.

Mrs Robinson said: "As you may have realised already, I was one of the candidates stood down by the Brexit Party this week, SE Cambs being a Conservative seat.

"At a personal level, though I can see the party's logic, I was very disappointed by that decision. My supporters were drawn from all the three parties and, to a man, they risked being 'homeless voters' as a result of that decision.

"Luckily, Edmund Fordham, a former Brexit Party candidate for Bury St Edmunds, has decided to stand as an Independent here, so they will, after all, have someone to vote for."

She said of the visit by Mayor Palmer:"We that have put ourselves forward for the Brexit Party and as independents are ordinary local people, trying to change the way in which politics is conducted in this country.

"Being personally approached at home, with no warning, demonstrates how desperately that change is needed."