2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election predecessor from 1987 until his resignation brought about the by-election, stood as the official Conservative Party candidate. He fought the campaign on the theme David Davis for Freedom. The English Democrats Party selected Joanne Robinson as its candidate. She previously stood as the United Kingdom Independence Party candidate for the same constituency in the 2001 general election. Blackpool based Hamish Howitt was one of two pub landlords who announced intentions to stand under the "Freedom to Choose" label, opposing the smoking ban in England. Shan Oakes was the Green Party candidate. She is also the party's candidate in the 2009
Norman Scarth Sedgefield (receiving 34 votes, 0.1%); and in 2008 in Haltemprice and Howden (receiving 8 votes, 0.0%). In Sedgefield, police were called to move him when he campaigned outside a supermarket. In Haltemprice and Howden he came joint last with 8 votes. He stood on an anti-crime platform and argued that "modern surveillance methods were as bad as the Nazis'". Scarth has also stood for his own Anti-Crime Party in local elections in Bradford, first standing in Bingley in 2007. He was arrested for shouting through a loudhailer outside a polling station in 2008, and challenged the election result, in which