A NEW political party has launched in Swindon with a promise to give a voice to “ordinary Britons” who feel unrepresented in Westminster.

Members of the Swindon branch of For Britain – known locally as For Swindon – came together for their inaugural meeting on Tuesday night.

For Britain was founded in October last year by former UKIP politician Anne Marie Waters, who is widely know for her controversial views on Islam and warm support for Marine Le Pen’s National Front.

Indeed, after he beat her in last year’s UKIP leadership election, the victorious Henry Bolton said the party had narrowly avoided becoming the “UK Nazi Party”.

But members of For Britain’s Swindon branch, led by secretary Robert Baggs and chairman Ian Baxter, dismissed such labels as ‘far right’ or ‘extremist’ and stressed their desire “to address the concerns of the vast majority of people”.

Ian said: “The aim is to represent those who don’t have a voice at the moment. The current political parties don’t speak for the common British people, and we want to change that.”

The party’s campaign pledges include leaving the European Union “without further delay”, reducing immigration, “ending Sharia law in the UK,” “restoring free speech” and replacing the first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation.

“Uncontrolled immigration is destroying the fabric of our nation and we feel we can’t say what we want to anymore,” Robert said.

Expressing a degree of exasperation at the “huge changes” that have taken place in society in recent years, he said: “There are things like knife crime and acid attacks that you never heard about before. The police seem more bothered about hate speech than solving real crimes and people who object are called ‘far right’, which simply isn’t fair.”

Another campaign pledge calls for the “public recognition of the teachings of the Koran and Mohammed,” though Ian confessed he was unable to provide clarity.

Former Conservative voter Rob Basford also attended the inaugural meeting. He said he had voted for the Tories all his life but now feels the party no longer represents him.

“I feel betrayed as a Conservative voter and I think there are many people who feel the same. There needs to be a proper choice for the electorate and For Britain appealed to me as a voter.”

But the meeting almost had to be postponed after protesters got wind of the party’s intentions.

Around two dozen people arrived at the West Swindon Shopping Centre carrying banners reading ‘refugees welcome’ and ‘love your neighbour’ to show their opposition to the movement.

One of the protestors said: “This isn’t about preventing freedom of speech. This is about showing that Swindon is proudly multicultural and anti fascist and that the far right aren’t welcome in our community. We won’t stand by and let them stir up racial hatred.”

Ian and Robert saw this as evidence of the slow erosion of free speech which they claim has gradually been occurring over the years.

“It’s not about race or skin colour - we just want this country to be this country,” said Ian.