Following on from the UKIP’s dramatic success at the polls last Thursday, the party is continuing to attract converts.

Now a prominent Liberal Democrat has declared for UKIP.

Garry Harrison of Chapman Way, East Malling, is a councillor on East Malling and Larkfield Parish Council.

He had been a member of the Liberal Democrats for 20 years and for two years served as the vice-chairman of the Medway branch of the party. He also twice stood as a Lib Dem candidate for the Medway Unitary Authority, standing unsuccessfully in their Gillingham North and River Wards.

He said: “I realise now that the sooner we get out of Europe the better - and UKIP is the only party who speaks for my views.”

Mr Harrison said he was fed up with “cheap jibes” that the party was anti-immigrant.

He said: “We will improve life for everyone in the UK - including our immigrants”.

Mr Harrison is divorced, but his former wife was an immigrant from Kosovo.