Katter’s Australian party has ejected its only senator, Fraser Anning, from the party over his statements about “non-European” migration two months after he made a speech calling for a “final solution” to immigration.

Despite the party leader, Bob Katter, backing Anning’s comments in August, the party drew the line on Thursday, ejecting Anning for ignoring directives not to distinguish between “European” and “non-European” migration because to do so was clearly racist.

The party was under increasing pressure to ditch Anning due to a withdrawal of union support and then a threat by the Labor party to direct preferences away from the Katter party in response to the racial furore.

In his first Senate speech in August, Anning praised the White Australia policy, called for an end to Muslim migration and invoked the term “final solution”. Katter, the federal leader of Katter’s Australian party, declared the speech had his “1,000% support”.

In a statement on Thursday, the president of Katter’s Australian party, Shane Paulger, said that “99% of what Senator Anning has been saying is solid gold” but “1% … is totally unacceptable”.

Paulger revealed that both he and Katter had told Anning “there was to be no more use of words like ‘Europeans’ and ‘non-Europeans’”.

“Clearly that is racist; clearly our policies are anti-racist,” he said.

Paulger said that in the title of his plebiscite (restricting non-European migration) bill and a proposed press release, Anning “used the same racial language” despite warnings of “extreme hostility” if he persisted.

The leader of Katter’s Australian party, Bob Katter, at a press conference called to announce that Fraser Anning was no longer a member of the party. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

“Clearly his divide of ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ would prevent, for example, Sikhs and Filipinos coming to this country,” he said. “His bill said the people should have the last say and that Australia’s policies should favour European migration. Both these things are true.”

Paulger defended the party’s decision to back Anning after his inaugural speech, noting that its policy supported favouring “people who can integrate into our community” and because they felt they knew “what he was getting at” with his warnings against Muslim migration.

He said that 640,000 people that came to Australia every year “overwhelmingly” come from countries without democracy, the rule of law, industrial awards, egalitarian traditions and “Judeo-Christian spiritual belief systems”.

Paulger said Katter’s Australian party supported bringing “persecuted minorities” from the Middle East and North Africa including Christians, Jews and Sikhs, and there should be “no restrictions” on Pacific Islanders coming to Australia.

“In spite of the most severe and clear warnings, Senator Anning has continued down this pathway and consequently we announce the termination of his endorsement by the KAP,” he said. “Clearly Fraser wants the freedom to pursue his crusade. And we think it is best for he and the party to give him this freedom.”

Anning responded to his expulsion from the party in a statement on Thursday night, saying Katter’s press came as a surprise to him.

“I never asked to join KAP,” Anning said. “Bob and other senior party members repeatedly asked me to do so and I only agreed on the grounds that I was free to speak out on immigration, the United Nations undue influence on Australia, stopping foreign aid and the persecuted white South Africans.

“At the time I made my maiden speech, Bob said he supported it 1,000% and Shane Paulger and KAP backed me. I haven’t changed my position but it seems that they have.”

Anning denied being told not to talk about “European” and “non-European” immigration by his party. “How can calling for a plebiscite on a predominantly European immigration program be ‘pure gold’ when I gave my maiden speech on 14 August and somehow ‘racist’ two months later?”

With the exception of Katter’s Australian party, Anning’s first speech was universally panned. Even Pauline Hanson, the leader of the rightwing nativist One Nation party that helped elect Anning to the Senate, decried it as “straight from Goebbels’ handbook from Nazi Germany”.

The speech was criticised by the then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the current deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg, Labor and the Greens.