A new group has been formed on Tendring District Council advocating a Brexit.

Councillors Peter Cawthron and Alex Porter, representing the Alton Park ward in Clacton, have become the Leave The EU group.

Both members were in the UKIP group, although Mr Porter had been suspended by the party’s local branch in the past week over an unrelated matter connected to an internal complaint. Mr Cawthron remains a member of the UKIP party.

Although Mr Porter, deputy group leader, does not expect any other councillors to join the Leave The EU group he hopes it will spark a debate on the authority.

He has also submitted a motion to next week’s council meeting which, if passed, would see the authority agree “that Britain would be better off outside the European Union”.

Mr Porter said: “We decided we could use this as an opportunity to promote the Leave the EU campaign a bit more. After the referendum on June 23 we will close the group.

“Even if it gets just three extra people to vote leave that’s fine. Every vote counts in this referendum, there are no wasted votes as in a general election.

“It will hopefully get a bit of discussion going. I have had quite a lot of responses from councillors across the parties to my motion saying they would support it.”

Mr Porter said he backed the Grassroots Out (Go!) campaign for Britain to leave the EU, but added in reality he did not mind as long as there were groups out campaigning.

Council groups shape who sits on which committee and the party balance of them.

Tendring District Council now has 10 different groups – Conservative, UKIP, Independent, Coastal Independents, Labour, Holland Residents’ Association, Leave The EU, Liberal Democrat, Tendring First and Other.