Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UKIP leader Nigel Farage: ''I don't want to see him [Godfrey Bloom] getting hounded out of the party"

Godfrey Bloom, the politician censured last week for joking that party activists were "sluts", says he is quitting the UKIP group in Europe.

In a statement he said he would stay in the European Parliament as an independent and remain a UKIP member.

But he added he had "felt for some time" the party was no longer for him.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage insisted nothing Mr Bloom had said was in malice and he did not want to see his colleague "hounded out of the party".

Analysis Godfrey Bloom is gone, which will be a huge relief for Nigel Farage. UKIP's leader was livid with his Brussels flatmate after the 'sluts' comment. He told members it had "destroyed" their conference last week, but he isn't looking to kick Bloom out of the party. In fact he told the BBC that Mr Bloom will "actively support our campaign in Yorkshire". Nigel Farage knows there will be many in his party - and some on the outside - who feel sympathy for Godfrey Bloom. He's not about to make a martyr of him. Better still he's not about to completely discard someone who he thinks still has voter appeal. Nigel Farage is trying to professionalise UKIP and with that comes internal discipline, but remember UKIP does not whip - instruct - its councillors and MEPs. They run a looser operation, precisely because they want their members to speak more freely.

The Yorkshire and Humber MEP had the whip removed last week after a recording emerged of him joking that a group of UKIP women who did not clean behind their fridges were "sluts".

'Tremendous distractions'

His statement said: "I have felt for some time now that the 'New UKIP' is not really right for me, any more, perhaps, than New Labour was right for the Dennis 'The beast of Bolsover' Skinner."

He said it had been a "pleasure" to work with the party's "loyal membership" for 15 years.

And he thanked "the thousands of people who have supported me with messages of goodwill in the recent months and particularly in recent days".

Mr Farage told the BBC the MEP would still be popular in his Yorkshire constituency where he would "actively campaign" for his expected successor in next year's European elections.

"All the things Godfrey has said have not been meant in malice but they have all been tremendous distractions from the main messages UKIP is trying to push out," he said.

"Nearly everything he has said has been meant as a joke."

The UKIP leader said "the vast majority" of party members would not want to see Mr Bloom "drummed out of the brownies".

'Permanent situation'

The controversial politician was criticised recently when he referred to "bongo-bongo land".

But he had the whip removed last week - suspending him from taking part in formal party business - after Mr Farage said he had "overshadowed" UKIP's annual conference.

He was heard joking that the "women in politics" conference fringe meeting was "full of sluts" who did not clean behind their fridges.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom: "I made a joke and said oh well you're all sluts and everybody laughed including all the women"

The joke prompted loud laughter.

Speaking to journalists afterwards, Mr Bloom said he was using the word as it was originally intended - to refer to women who were not tidy.

When confronted about UKIP campaign literature which allegedly featured no non-white faces, the MEP accused Channel 4 News journalist Michael Crick of being a racist and rapped him around the head with the leaflet.

Mr Farage was furious that the MEP's latest controversy had distracted from what he had said was an otherwise successful conference.

Party chairman Steve Crowther said after the incident: "I have withdrawn the whip from Godfrey Bloom, pending a formal disciplinary hearing."

Sources close to Mr Farage told the BBC Mr Bloom's decision to quit as a UKIP MEP "makes permanent a temporary situation".