Farage said a Reform UK candidate’s previous posts encouraging people to vote for the British National Party (BNP) were not acceptable.
Grant StClair-Armstrong, who is standing in North West Essex, has resigned from the party after a report in The Times newspaper said he also used a blog to make racial slurs and a joke about “female hormones”.
He posted on a blog in 2010: “I could weep now, every time I pick up a British newspaper and read the latest about the state of the UK.
“No doubt, Enoch Powell would be doing the same if he was alive. My solution … vote BNP!”
StClair-Armstrong told The Times: “I’ve got no excuses for that. I think they’re a disgusting party. I don’t like the English Defence League. I don’t like them.”
His name will still appear on the ballot paper as a Reform UK candidate because the deadline for nominations has passed, but if elected he would stand as an independent.
Farage said: “This particular case is a chap in his 70s, who 20 years ago said he was thinking of voting BNP as a protest vote, he was never a member of the BNP.
“However, we don’t find that acceptable.
“With a short general election every party is having problems with candidates, but effectively when you vote… the choices are not so much the candidates in the constituencies – we’ve almost got a presidential style now.
“People are voting for or against Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Ed Davey or me. They’re the names that are really on the ballot paper.”
