Nigel Farage defended Kerry Smith on LBC (Picture: LBC)

Nigel Farage has defended a former Ukip candidate who resigned after being caught using the racial slur ‘chinky’.

The Ukip leader admitted Kerry Smith was ‘not suitable’ to stand for election to parliament but insisted his comments – which included calling gay party members ‘poofters’ – were not made with malice.

Challenged on LBC radio over Mr Smith’s use of the word ‘chinky’ to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage responded: ‘If you and your mates are going out for a Chinese, what would you say you were going for?’

And asked if he would himself say he was ‘going for a Chinky’, Mr Farage replied: ‘No, but a lot of people would.




‘I don’t think I’ve ever used that word.’

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Kerry Smith quit as Ukip’s candidate (Picture: PA)

He described the Essex councillor as a ‘rough diamond’ and said there was snobbery against people from outside the capital using ‘colloquial’ language.

But Mr Farage appeared to cast doubt on the explanation Mr Smith gave at the time, when he said he had been taking strong painkillers.

The Ukip leader said: ‘I haven’t found sedatives have had that effect on me, I have to say.’

Mr Smith stood down as candidate for South Basildon and East Thurrock – regarded as one of Ukip’s most winnable target constituencies – earlier this month after the release of a recording of a phone call.

In it he mocked gay party members as ‘poofters’, joked about shooting people from Chigwell in a ‘peasant hunt’, and referred to someone as a ‘chinky bird’.

He later resigned as a party member.

Mr Farage added: ‘Kerry himself said that he used language that Del Boy used to use on Only Fools and Horses, and nobody objected then.’

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