THE UK Independence Party have revealed their candidate for next month’s by-election.

UKIP’s Neil Willetts will be up against electoral rivals Liberal Democrat Norman Johns, Conservative Mohammed Rashid and Labour’s Stephen Tudhope at the polls on Tuesday, September 17, in the fight to secure the Maybury and Sheerwater seat.

The space on Woking Borough Council became vacant because Lib Dem Mohammed Bashir, who won the election last year, was discovered to have forged his victory. The High Court found him guilty of electoral fraud and he has been banned from office for five years and suspended from the party.

Addressing the voters, Mr Willetts said: “It’s a tight election and it could go either way. Your postal vote gives you a chance to make a statement against corrupt and illegal practises and to remind councillors, councils and politicians just who holds the true power: the voter.”

Mr Willetts, who is a business consultant and lives in West Byfleet, admits he isn’t ‘fresh out of college’ but rather is someone with experience who, thanks to his consultancy background, knows how business and councils work.

He says he is keen to see residents treated fairly and honestly, and vows: “I will expose those councillors who don’t represent residents’ interests and who instead favour officers who think about their careers instead of the residents of Maybury and Sheerwater.

“I look forward to challenging councillors who have failed to stand up to council officers.”

Explaining why he thinks residents should vote for him, he said: “I am not a career politician or anybody with a local building or property agenda. I am not a graduate from Oxbridge with an eye to a career in Westminster. I am not a guy who’s going to toe any political line the ‘thought police’ have fed me – I just want sense and democratic decency to prevail.

“I carry an attitude borne of working as a consultant, to change the way councils work. I have worked in Ealing, Peterborough and Birmingham councils – some of the most culturally diverse in England – and I will be a cat among the pigeons in the cozy world of Woking Borough Council.

“I will challenge the complacent lookalike old parties to deliver on their promises and to represent the voters with decency and honesty.”