A UKIP councillor sensationally claimed to have been a drug dealer in the middle of a packed council meeting — before denying that he had said anything of the sort.

Cllr Paul Godier — who was homeless but turned his life around to become a candidate for the party — told a full meeting of Portsmouth Council:

“My background is being a drug dealer … I’ve tested out these legal highs”

Cllr Paul Godier flatly denied he had made the claim — until played a recording of the meeting by Scrapbook. He then insisted that he had never dealt drugs, saying he misspoke during a debate due to “first speech nerves”. Godier went on to call for a crackdown on legal highs.

Whatever the facts, his current stance puts him at odds with UKIP’s libertarian leadership. Nigel Farage told the Telegraph back in April:

“I hate drugs, I’ve never taken them myself, I hope I never do, but I just have a feeling that the criminalisation of all these drugs is actually not really helping British society.”

“I think we should look at it and if ever there was a subject where we needed a genuine Royal Commission [to look at decriminalisation of certain drugs]”

Could ‘metropolitan liberal’ Farage be out of touch with the UKIP grassroots?