Farage defends candidate over offensive comments

Nigel Farage has defended a former Ukip British parliamentary candidate who stood down after being recorded using derogatory terms about homosexuals and Chinese people.

The Ukip leader said that Kerry Smith was “not suitable” to stand for election to parliament for the party, but insisted that his comments were not made with malice.

He described the Essex councillor as a “rough diamond” and criticised what he said was metropolitan snobbery against people from outside the capital using “colloquial” language.

But Farage appeared to cast doubt on Smith’s explanation that he had been taking strong painkillers at the time of the comments.

The Ukip leader told LBC radio: “I haven’t found sedatives have had that effect on me, I have to say. I might have said a few things after other forms of medication that I shouldn’t have done, but then again we all have, haven’t we?”

Smith stood down as candidate for South Basildon and East Thurrock — regarded as one of Ukip’s most winnable target constituencies — earlier this month after the release of a recording of a phone call in which he mocked gay party members as “poofters”, joked about shooting people from Chigwell in a “peasant hunt” and referred to someone as a “Chinky bird”. He later resigned as a party member.

Farage told LBC: “I’m a bit sad, because Kerry Smith is a rough diamond. He’s a council house boy from the East End of London, left school early and talks and speaks in a way that a lot of people from that background do.

“I feel a bit sorry for Kerry Smith, because I think he’s a genuine fellow.”