Question: In your manifesto you say pulling out of the UK will bring an independence dividend of £20 billion a year. However the campaigning group Britain in Europe say you're living in a fantasy world if you think you can pull out of Europe and still prosper. They say pulling out of Europe would damage our trade, undermine inward investment and put thousands of jobs at risk. How do you respond to that?

Jeffrey Titford: Well I think they've got completely the wrong idea. Let's separate these strands. First of all, the £20 billion independence dividend. That would be created first of all by the fact that you are not paying the European Union the annual sum that the government has to pay, which comes to varying figures: the Institute of Directors says they think it's about £16 billion; we've conservatively said £8.5 billion. And the rest of the money is made up from further economic advances and assistance that will be gained by coming out.

Now we'll turn to the question of trade. The question of trade if we come out of Europe will not be affected one iota for two or three reasons. The most prominent one is we all thought we were actually joining a trade organisation called the Common Market. Well it didn't stay that way did it? It's changed completely and has now become the European Union. But during the 28 years of our membership our trade with Europe has actually declined to the extent that where we were in a credit situation, we are now in a deficit. That deficit has built up to something like £175 billion worth of trade over those years. Now if we come out of the EU, we are going to take away from British business and industry something like 25,000 regulations. And just looking at my paperwork, I see there are about another 50 regulations which are being imposed by votes coming through. On that basis, if you take the regulations away - and most of them are not either appropriate to our country or are damaging to our industry - then we can only do one thing, and that is to prosper in trade and industry.

Question: What about inward investment though?

Jeffrey Titford: That would be no problem at all. Because people invest here not because we're a part of the EU. They come and invest with us because at the moment we still have control over our own financial affairs: we set our own interest rates, exchange rates and everything else is worked out to our own position. At the moment we still have our own employment laws which is an advantage to people that come over here. And last, but by no means least, we speak English which about three quarters of the world understands and therefore the trading arrangements are done in English, much to the annoyance of the European Union people in Brussels. That is one of the greatest advantages of all to us and that is why we get most of the investment that comes into the European Union anyhow.

Question: Have you made any assessment of the jobs that would be lost if we pulled out of the EU?

Jeffrey Titford: We would not lose jobs. We would probably increase employment.

Question: Why's that?

Jeffrey Titford: First and foremost, the old story that was going around that three million people would be put out of work because of loss of trade is absolute rubbish. Neil Kinnock in an interview from Strasbourg, about a month ago, actually said withdrawal would have no effect on our trade with the EU at all. So in other words that one was squashed by the Vice President of the Commission himself.

What I'm saying to you is: the EU countries need to continue trading with us because they sell us more than we sell them. But what I said earlier was that if you take away all these EU regulations our business and industry can only prosper. We would no longer be held down to that wonderful European phrase "the level playing field". We would be much more competitive. Remember that before we joined the Common Market, as it was then called, we had a credit balance of trade with Europe. I believe that withdrawal would put us back in that happy situation again. We would be in a particularly healthy position to compete against our European neighbours because they would continue to be stifled by EU regulations. Unemployment in Europe is far greater than it is in Britain because businesses are not prepared to take people on in business because of the heavy regulatory commitments.

Question: You said you could possibly win three Westminster seats. Which one looks the most winnable?

Jeffrey Titford: Well we've been looking at this one. As a party we are very strong down in the south west. I believe that the reasons the Liberals did so well down there - were basically because Labour and Conservative voters were looking for a middle course, so they chose the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have now aligned themselves to the EU far more than either of the other two parties. They are totally sold on the idea, to the extent that they have lost all sense of balance on the issue.

The south west has been very badly hit. The fishing industry has been decimated; the hill farmers and small farmers are suffering very, very badly. They don't like the European Union at all . We believe that by putting in some strong candidates in Falmouth and Cambourne and in North Devon and one or two other places there, we have great possibilities of winning through. After all, we actually ran second to the Conservatives in many of those constituencies during the European election.

Question: So is there one seat you've particularly got your eye on or is it just the ones you've highlighted in the south west?

Jeffrey Titford: There are those. There's also another seat which is very vulnerable and we could win, and that is Stafford. Here we have Lord Richard Bradford who is a well known local person who is running a tremendous campaign and, has a lot of respect. It's a seat which is winnable by anybody and we believe that we could come through even there. There maybe other ones around the country. After all some of the elections to the European Parliament showed us winning 15 per cent to 20 per cent in other seats. It only needs another 5 per cent and we would overturn something within those constituencies as well.

Question: You said you could win one million votes. But in 1997 you only won 106,000.

Jeffrey Titford: Ah yes, but we were then up against the Referendum party for which I was a candidate. In my constituency, Harwich I took 9.2 per cent of the vote. By the time of the European election, with the Referendum party out of the way, we polled close on one million votes then on a very low turn out. And my personal vote in the Harwich constituency went up to 15 per cent. We have taken the Referendum vote - we don't propose to let that one go. And what we are doing now is building upon it because we don't believe that any of the other parties are taking a decent line on the EU, which we are. We believe that the MORI polls and NOP polls when they are taken on the issue of the EU prove that the people first of all want a referendum on it: they believe they should have a say. And secondly, indications have been that 52 per cent of the people want to get out of Europe all together.

Question: You are putting up 400 candidates. How many of these candidates could possibly take away votes from the Conservative candidate in a marginal seat and cost him/her the seat? Have you made any assessment of the damage you could inflict on the Conservative party?

Jeffrey Titford: I'm not interested in the Conservative party, the Labour party or the Liberal party. We are putting up over 400 people to stand for election on the straightforward argument that we wish to withdraw from the European Union and restore power to Westminster and to have trading agreements with the European Union. That's our stance. Whether any of the Tories want to come our way that's up to them. But at the moment they don't and we're a completely separate party.

Question: You've won the support of former Conservative MP Charles Wardle. Are there any other former Conservative party MPs or senior Conservative figures who may shift their support to you during the campaign? Jeffrey Titford: Well of course, Roger Knapman was a Tory whip in Major's government and is standing for us in North Devon. We have one or two others: I had somebody contact us yesterday - an ex-Tory who now wishes to stand for us. I am trying to find him a constituency in my region. I am not prepared to disclose his name at this moment. But there are one or two people who have indicated they will give us their support and they have been standing as candidates for other parties.

Question: The Conservatives have taken a more sceptic line on Europe since 1997. Are there any senior Conservative figures who privately share your view about the EU?

Jeffrey Titford: They have never indicated to me that they share our view. A journalist - I won't name him but he comes from the Daily Mail - recently said he understood the Conservative line was that they wanted to get out of the EU but he was not prepared to name who said it or anything else that would substantiate that claim.

Alright, some of the Conservatives know that this is a good line. But the party leaders, Hague and those kind of people, are not prepared to say this because they've all indicated previously that they believe our place is within the EU. Until the main party officials say they want to come out of the EU, we shall remain as a fully fledged party committed to withdrawal from the EU.

Question: Do you see that there is any movement in the Conservative party that say in future years they may move towards your stance?

Jeffrey Titford: I don't think there is any doubt that they have moved in the right direction since the last General Election but unfortunately nowhere near enough. I've not really had any indication that they propose to shift from this ridiculous and contradictory 'in Europe but not run by Europe' mantra. Speeches have been made by Maude and by Hague that say the future of the UK is within the EU. Until they change that I'm not prepared to believe that one or two Euro-sceptics are going to change the policy of the party.

Question: Out of your 400 candidates, how many of them do you expect to keep their deposits?

Jeffrey Titford: We are trying for two million votes.

Question: How realistic is that?

Jeffrey Titford: It doubles what we have at the moment. As I said earlier our party believes that the electorate of the United Kingdom supports our policy. It is only a question of being able to convince them to transfer their vote from parties they've voted for all their lives to us.

Question: So two million votes, 400 candidates. How many deposits kept?

Jeffrey Titford: I would like to think we will keep fifty per cent.