ANGRY words were exchanged at a debate over a crisis described as “the defining issue of our time”.

Kelly-Marie Blundell, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Lewes, said the Government’s handling of the global refugee crisis made her “ashamed to be British” and accused Tory Maria Caulfield of voting against the protection of child refugees.

Ms Caulfield denied the accusation in a tense exchange which came after 15 audience members at the King’s Church, Lewes hustings had stood silently in solidarity with the questioner.

Through the course of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting in Brooks Road, organised by Churches Together in the Lewes Area, applause suggested Ms Blundell had the greatest support in the room.

The constituency returned her party colleague Norman Baker to Parliament for 18 years until electing Ms Caulfield in 2015. Ms Blundell said she was there hoping to “fill very big shoes”.

The meeting also saw the two frontrunners, along with Labour candidate Brighton and Hove City Councillor Daniel Chapman, exchange views on Brexit, tactical voting, Southern Rail, renewable energy, affordable housing, and assisted dying.

In response to the question of the treatment of child refugees, Ms Blundell drew loud applause when she said: “This government’s response to refugees makes me ashamed to be British,

“We incarcerate them, we give them less than the standard level of benefits. I was absolutely in tears when David Cameron reinstituted the child detention centres which we’d managed to get rid of.

“I think it is absolutely atrocious and what the Conservative government has done makes me completely ashamed.”

At the meeting on Thursday she then accused Maria Caulfield of voting against taking child refugees.

Ms Caulfield responded by explaining that she had voted against a version of the Dubs Amendment which did not include provision for taking child refugees from outside of Europe, but had voted in favour of the final version which did.

All three candidates were agreed that Southern Rail had brought misery to the constituency.

Ms Blundell said the answer was to sack Southern Rail and Cllr Chapman receive wild applause for saying: “We need to take back control of our railways, we need to put people before profits and renationalise the railways.”

Ms Caulfield blamed her own government for not doing more to intervene in the dispute.

One person drew attention to Ms Caulfield’s vote against the Assisted Dying Bill last year by asking whether it was right to be spared “the indignity and pain” of the final weeks of life.

Mr Chapman and Ms Blundell said they would be in favour of such a bill should it come before them but Ms Caulfield said from her experience as a nurse dealing with terminal patients and their carers, those who would be called upon to perform such an act were overwhelmingly against its becoming legal.

All three said EU nationals resident in the UK should have citizens’ rights.