I congratulate Kris Hopkins, Conservative, on his well deserved win in our parliamentary election for the right to be the next Member of Parliament for the Keighley constituency. This campaign was both open and enjoyable because the main candidates conducted a fair and honest debate of the issues affecting our nation and those of particular local concern. I was very pleased to take part in the hustings proceedings and thank the organisers for including me as the candidate for UKIP.

My commiserations go to Jane Thomas who fought a brave campaign in her attempt to be returned as the Labour MP to follow the well liked and respected Ann Cryer.

Nader Fekri, Liberal Democrat, must be surprised and delighted with how recent events have come about for the party he represents.

The outcome of this election has been unexpected with a coalition formed between the Lib-Dems and Conservatives owing to no one party having an overall majority of seats in Westminster. Many who voted for those parties will feel let down by such an unlikely alliance. The scale of the problem facing our country must be handled by putting this issue first. But how can such diverse policy manifestos be merged together? Or can these differences be put to one side for the present?

One point of correction, Andrew Brons, BNP, states that UKIP was attempting to squeeze the “nationalist” vote in Keighley. Well, we were not. We have support from all sections of the community, irrespective of place of birth, ethnic origin, culture or religion, and my own beliefs and our list of candidates throughout the country reflect this. The BNP vote dropped from 4,240 in 2005 to 1,962 in this election.

At UKIP we are not an anti-European party but we do not wish to see a political union with Europe with a parliament in Brussels deciding British legislation for us. We fully support the NATO defence treaty that has kept us safe for 60 years. The two are completely different.

May I say that at UKIP we have not changed our policy position. We believe that our deficit can be drastically reduced by leaving the EU and saving £16.5 billion in gross contributions to the annual EU budget and according to Lord Pearson, our party leader, an estimated £120 billion a year in indirect costs due to EU directives and red tape, also the running down of industries such as fishing and exposing agriculture to unrealistic quotas.

Mr Cameron has a tough job to reconcile policy with Britain’s best long-term interests but we must wish him good fortune in the attempt to do so.

Paul Latham

Former UKIP Candidate, Keighley constituency