Nigel Farage has defended the offensive 'ch***y' comment made by former Ukip activist Kerry Smith by asking: "If you and your mates are going out for a Chinese, what do you say you’re going for?”

Smith was forced to step down as the parliamentary candidate for South Basildon and East Thurrock after calls where he was said to have mocked gay party members as “disgusting p****ers” and referred to someone with a Chinese name as a “ch***y bird” were revealed by the Mail on Sunday.

He later resigned from Ukip, claiming he was “sick of internal backstabbers”. He will now sit as an independent on Essex County Council.

Speaking on LBC, the Ukip leader described Smith as a “rough diamond” who came from a working class background and used language that he claimed many from a similar background do.

Defending Smith, he said: “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 school and background do."

“We can pretend if you like… If you and your mates are going out for a Chinese, what do you say you’re going for?”

Farage claimed a lot people would use the word 'ch***y'.

However, he added: "I don't think I've ever used that word".

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Later in the phone-in, Farage said the press was unfairly focusing on Ukip after a caller said he felt as if he was reading about party candidates “resigning over racism, homophobia, animal cruelty, sexism and the like” every day.

The caller had phoned-in to ask Farage if he thought he would be “the last man standing” come the 2015 general elections.

Farage responded: “I don’t think I read that every day! We’ve had a case of Kerry Smith who yes he was ‘loutish’ in what he said and is not fit to be a Parliamentary candidate but I don’t think there was anything malicious or evil about what he was trying to do.”

He said he hadn’t heard of any other similar cases “for a very, very long time”.