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UKIP’s Nigel Farage said his party is still targeting Labour seats in the North-east on a visit to the region today.

Mr Farage said that there has been a shift in the polls over recent weeks showing more Labour voters in the north are planning to vote UKIP in the General Election.

He spoke to supporters at Hartlepool’s Grand Hotel and said UKIP was hoping to smash Labour’s ‘one party state’ hold on the North-east - and claimed that coming second in 2012’s Middlesbrough by-election showed the party’s growing popularity.

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In his speech, Mr Farage said he was “really rather bored” of his party being branded racist as he reached out to voters in Hartlepool and across Teesside, saying that UKIP were the “main opposition to Labour” in most seats.

Mr Farage also became the latest party leader to back Gazette readers’ Teesside Manifesto - saying it “read like a UKIP pledge card”.

More to follow