Published: 5:38 PM December 9, 2019 Updated: 6:08 PM September 17, 2020

Brexit Party activists supporting party chair Richard Tice have been reportedly caught making racist and Islamophobic comments in the midst of the general election campaign for Hartlepool.

An undercover Channel 4 News investigation claims to have exposed shocking comments such as one councillor, David Mincher, saying he once tried to bury a pig's head under a mosque that was being built locally.

Another activist claiming to be the party's regional assistant manager, Gordon Parkin, is reported to have said that Muslims are "outbreeding us" and that countries that "don't accept Muslims" don't have to spend as much on policing and healthcare.

The Brexit Party dismissed Parkin and has removed the whip from Mincher after the comments were brought to the party, and Tice has condemned them "in the strongest possible terms".

Channel 4 News sent a reporter undercover over three weekends of canvassing in the seat that Tice is contesting.

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The team filmed Mincher, a prominent local activist, as he went canvassing in the town, representing the party and urging the public to vote for Tice. But between knocking on doors Channel Four say he made a slew of racist comments.

He reportedly said: "We tried to put a big pig's head in the concrete. We got over the fence. You know, when people were doing the groundwork. They had all the bouncers who do all the North East, were doing the security for that mosque. So when we got in they caught us. Just f***ing kicked us out.

"Because we were going to take a video with a pig's head under their concrete. Let them finish it. Let it all get built. And then just send the video and say, 'Look there, there you go, you've got a f***ing pig's head under your mosque there so you'll have to get it all knocked down and redone again'. Or they just leave it, cos it's desecrated ground innit?"

Channel 4 News says Mincher recounted the pig's head story repeatedly, including once in front of Rick Moore, the Brexit Party candidate for Blackburn.

Moore did not react to the story when Mincher related it, but later reportedly said he does not recall the conversation, saying he must having been "feigning attention" because he had been "mentally tired" and had "switched off" after long hours of campaigning.

He told Channel 4 News: "I do not endorse his behaviour, and I can only apologise for not paying attention to what was being said to me at the time so that I could have taken action. I hope that Mr Mincher is dismissed from the party."

Mincher also reportedly said of Muslims: "They're outbreeding us ... As soon as they get into one or two houses, the prices go down for the rest of the street. So they then go like right, 'Like we'll buy that house next door now they've moved out'. It's all a knock-on effect isn't it? Next door move out first because they don't want them next door, because they live like animals."

Mincher was elected as a UKIP councillor in May but later switched to the Brexit Party.

He is part of a pro-Brexit coalition between the Brexit Party and Conservatives that is now Hartlepool Borough Council's largest political group.

Channel 4 News say the councillor made a series of offensive slurs against a number of other ethnic groups, including Turkish people, black people, Pakistanis and Asians.

He claimed to the channel the Brexit Party is aware of his past, but were "fine" with the offending "as long as I haven't been to jail".

Tice was not present for Mincher's derogatory comments but has met the councillor and praised his "commitment to the cause".

Channel 4 News also says it has obtained footage of Gordon Parkin, who claims to be the Brexit Party's assistant manager for the North East region, and was filmed inside the Hartlepool campaign office making several Islamophobic remarks.

He reportedly said: "Look at certain other countries, who will not accept Muslims ... They don't need a quarter of the prisons that we need. They don't need a quarter of the policeman that we need. They don't need a quarter of the health services we need."

He added: "...most of them were f***king born here. And that's what they're doing. They're outbreeding us."

Channel 4 News reports that he appeared to laugh at the suggestion that black people and immigrants suffer discrimination, remarking that people of Hartlepool "don't like coloured people".

Mincher has since told the broadcaster that he made up the story about burying a pig's head "as a stupid act of showing off to your reporter".

He said he had resigned as councillor and added: "I realise how much I need to change my attitude to others."

Richard Tice, chairman of the Brexit Party, said: "Both I and the Brexit Party totally condemn the hideous remarks in question in the strongest possible terms.

"I would take the gravest exception to any attempt by Channel 4 to suggest that I or the Brexit Party in any way share, condone or was aware of these views and matters."

Parkin has not yet responded to Channel 4 News' request for comment.

A Brexit Party councillor boasted he tried to bury a pig's head under a mosque, and said Muslims were "outbreeding us" and bring down house prices because they "live like animals"

He used offensive slurs against black people, Pakistanis and Turks, and Eastern Europeans

He also bragged of serving repeated bans from football matches, and violently attacking opposition supporters

A Brexit Party regional assistant manager also used racist language saying Muslims are "outbreeding us" and countries that ban them need fewer police, prison and health services.

Brexit Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Blackburn, Rick Moore, listened to the boasts about burying a pig's head under a mosque, but says he doesn't recall the conversation

An undercover Channel 4 News investigation has exposed shocking racism and prejudice inside Nigel Farage's Brexit Party by central figures campaigning to win the key target seat of Hartlepool.

Party activists in the campaign to elect Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice to Parliament