A row has broken out between the Labour and Tory candidates for a Ealing seat over its hospital.
Ealing Central and Acton Conservative candidate Joy Morrissey threatened to pull out of a hustings on Tuesday (May 30) over the issue.
She accused Labour rival candidate Rupa Huq of lying on her campaign leaflets, which said Ealing Hospital is closing, Mrs Morrissey voted to close it and that the American is a "hard Brexit activist".
General Election latest
Mrs Morrissey warned Dr Huq she would not attend the hustings and take legal action if the leaflets were not withdrawn.
She claims Dr Huq told her and organisers she was withdrawing the leaflets, which led Mrs Morrissey to attend last-minute on Tuesday.
Getwestlondon has seen an email from Chris Hurley, chair of Churchfield Community Association (CCA), which held the hustings, reading: "We remain hopeful that she will attend in light of the leaflet she (Mrs Morrissey) dislikes having been withdrawn - I was told this by Rupa yesterday."
When Getwestlondon put this claim to Dr Huq after the hustings, a spokesman said: "We haven’t withdrawn anything and we stand by all our literature."
Mrs Morrissey said: "I am disappointed to hear that Rupa Huq has taken less than 24 hours to withdraw her admission, which she confirmed to the CCA chair Chris Hurley, myself and countless members of the public, that her election literature had been withdrawn.
"It is nothing more than another example of her attempting to deceive the electorate.
"I am very disappointed she has gone back on her word."
Mrs Morrissey said the hospital is not set for closure, instead changing to a local hospital, and voted against the council motion Dr Huq referred to in the leaflets because it repeated this claim.
She denied saying she was a "hard Brexit activist", claiming she did not campaign to leave the EU, although she acknowledges she told Getwestlondon she would vote for Brexit in the weeks leading up to the vote.
A spokesman for Dr Huq said: "She did vote against the Save Our Hospitals campaign and she did campaign for Brexit.
"These are facts on the public record and she cannot run away from them no matter how hard she tries.
"Her campaign alleges that Ealing Hospital is not closing despite the NHS openly saying that there will be no district general hospital in our borough."
What is happening to Ealing Hospital?
In July 2015 Ealing Hospital lost its maternity ward, before its children's ward closed the following year.
According to London North West Healthcare NHS Trust, it is not closing but will instead change to a local hospital under a Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP).
It means some of its services will be reduced, with an increased aim on treating patients at or closer to home.
Under the STP pans, 500 "acute beds" will be lost across west London to avoid a £1bn budget gap.
Keep up to date with the latest news in west London via the free getwestlondon app.
You can even set it to receive push notifications for all the breaking news in your area.
Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android now!
