BARRIE HUDSON chats to James Faulkner, standing for the UK Independence Party in North Swindon, in our series on all the local candidates in the General Election on May 7.

JAMES Faulkner believes a vote for UKIP is best for Swindon, for the country – and for democracy.

He said: “One of the things about politics up to now is that if we take, for example, the results in Swindon, it can be very much mapped that poorer areas tend to vote Labour and richer areas tend to vote Conservative.

“I think that’s not necessarily very good for democracy because you can often predict which party is going to win, just based on how affluent an area is.

“I think it’s important that that gets shaken up a bit. It’s important for democracy that we have a bit more choice and that it’s not necessarily so predictable how well each party does in each area.

“People are starting to consider other parties and they’re not necessarily voting the same way they always have.”

James, 39, lives in Stratton and is married with a baby son.

Born in Worcester and raised in Norwich, he is a systems engineer specialising in telecoms and IT, and came to Swindon for a new job in 2000.

He began thinking about voting UKIP about three years ago, and joined after discovering that the party wasn’t fielding a local election candidate in his ward.

About a year later, James stood for election there.

He chose the party for a number of reasons.

“One of the biggest things is that they tend to put British people first,” he said.

“A lot of the people who are voting for us are saying they like that – UKIP are interested in the future of British people.”

James is firmly in favour of his party’s stance on Europe, believing the EU is a throwback to the principles and fears of a long-gone era.

“There was a guy called Jean Monnet who had this idea that you could prevent another war in Europe by effectively merging all the countries of Europe together.

“That’s been the plan right from the start, to merge the countries into a sort of United States of Europe.

“They knew they couldn’t achieve that in one go, so what they’re doing is many, many little steps.

"There’s a little treaty here and a little step there. They intended that the public wouldn’t really notice the tiny steps.

“The eventual aim is basically a United States of Europe, where Britain would become just a region of a bigger country.”

James firmly believes UKIP has plenty to bring Swindon and that he’s the ideal person to deliver those benefits.

“I’ve lived in Swindon for 15 years in many different parts – West Swindon, Lawn, Old Town and now Stratton, so I know the whole town very well.

“I’m very interested in the history of Swindon, particularly the railway history.

"I’ve been a volunteer at the Swindon and Cricklade Railway for a long time and was a trustee there for a while.

“I think UKIP is a chance to really change democracy. This is the chance to get a new party that will shake things up.

A vote for either Labour or the Conservatives is a vote to keep things as they are.

“UKIP is the chance to shake things up and make politicians listen to the public a lot more.”

Also standing in North Swindon are: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative); Mark Dempsey (Labour); Janet Ellard (Liberal Democrat); Poppy Hebden-Leeder (Green).