Jackie Hooper, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, said she was hoping to get 10 per cent of the vote in the new Newton Abbot Constituency.

In the 2005 general election the UKIP candidate Trevor Colman polled 6.4 per cent of the vote in the former Teignbridge seat.

'I think we have done better than last time. We are giving people the chance to vote the way they want to. The other parties thought we were a flash in the pan, but we are here to stay.

'People need to have their say on the EU question and it is not going away,' she said.

Mrs Hooper said while she had had a lot of positive reaction while canvassing, there were still so many saying they were voting Conservative to keep the Lib Dems out or vice-versa.

'It surprises me they were not voting for positive reasons,' said the housewife from Kingsteignton who also works in woodland management.

Mother of three Mrs Hooper, who has strong local roots – Tom Pearce of Uncle Tom Cobley fame is her great grandfather six generations back – gave up her job at Teign School sometime ago to help UKIP because she felt so strongly at the way farmers were being badly treated by the EU.