Apprentice star Lord Alan Sugar has been attacked for saying a Brexit campaigner should not "tell us British what we should do" because she is originally from Germany.

Commenting on the BBC's debate on EU membership ahead of the referendum on Thursday, the businessman said he found it "strange" that Bavaria-born Gisela Stuart was participating in the debate for Leave side.

Referring to her by her maiden name, Lord Sugar called her "a 1974 immigrant from Germany".

Ms Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, moved to the UK at the age of 19.

She is one of the most high profile Labour voices on the official Vote Leave campaign and appeared alongside former Mayor of London Boris Johnson and energy minister Andrea Leadsom in an BBC debate in front of 6,000 people at Wembley Arena.

Tory MP and Leave backer Nadhim Zahawi took exception to the remarks, saying: "You must withdraw and apologise to Gisela. That is disgraceful. She is as British as you are."

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And former Tory MP Louise Mensch tweeted: "Lord-Sugar PIG".

Lord Sugar later denied he was being racist, pointing out that Ms Stuart is an immigrant who is now arguing against immigration.

In a series of tweets, he said: "Yes she is (British) now, and has been arguing that we need to curb immigrants from the EU. She immigrated to UK from Germany in 1974.

"30 mins ago was advocating that we stop immigration from the EU like Germany in future and exit EU."

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Retweeting someone who called him racist, the peer said: "You ignorant fool. How can my comment be classified as racist. Crawl back under your rock."

Lord Sugar came out for the Remain last month saying British people would be "mugs" if they voted to leave the EU.

In an article for The Sun, he said: “I’ve been in business for 50 years, I’ve seen some pretty daft ideas in my time. And I’ll tell you one of them: Britain leaving the EU”.

Despite this, the official Stronger In campaign distanced itself from his remarks telling political blog Guido Fawkes that his comments were "completely unacceptable and inappropriate".