Former UKIP man Sid Pepper standing as Independent to become Mansfield MP

Sid Pepper represented the UKIP party in the 2015 and 2017 elections, achieving more than 11,000 votes when he stood four years ago.

The staunch Brexiteer had hoped to represent the Brexit Party at the election but lost out to former Mansfield mayor Kate Allsop, and says his vote is on the ballot paper as a “protest against how Brexit has been handled”.

He said: “I know I won’t achieve anything as an MP, but you could say I’m there as a sort of protest vote.

“Things have gone from exciting to irksome since the EU referendum in 2016, and the way it has been handled is shocking.

“We have real issues in this country that need solving and the current batch of politicians are distracting us with the mismanagement of Brexit.

“I want to see that the people get what they voted for, not Boris Johnson’s Brexit by name.

It is incumbent upon me to give people choice.”

He will stand in the December 12 poll against Ben Bradley of the Tories, Sonya Ward of Labour, Kate Allsop of the Brexit Party, and Sarah Brown of the Liberal Democrats.