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A furious audience member who lambasted comedian Russell Brand on Question Time last night is the BROTHER of a Ukip MEP, it has emerged.

Robert Carver challenged the comedian to stand for Parliament and defended Ukip leader Nigel Farage during an impassioned debate in Canterbury screened on BBC1 last night.

However, today it can be revealed that he is the brother of James Carver, the Ukip MEP for the West Midlands.

Mr Carver, from Chislehurst, told Mr Brand: "Stand! Stand for Parliament. If you're going to campaign, then stand, OK? You have the media profile for it."

The comedian replied: "My problem would be mate, I’d stand for parliament but I’d be scared that I’d become one of them.”

After Mr Brand accused Mr Farage of criticising the disabled, Mr Carver launched a passionate defence of the Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

He said: “I’ve never heard him criticise the disabled, OK? Never.”

But the man with a walking stick turns out to be the brother of Farnborough-born Ukip MEP James Carver.

According to his Facebook page, the audience member has a brother named Jimmy Carver.

And a guest blog ‘What I know about Ukip supporters in debates’ appeared on a website last month written by a man named Rob Carver claiming to be the West Midlands MEP’s brother.

A biography beneath the post also states: "Rob has been asked by Ukip to stand as the party candidate in the Tory safe seat of Beckenham at the general election."

On another post on the UKIP Facebook page in June, Mr Carver said: “My brother Jim Carver was elected as a MEP for the West Midlands, and is in the process of taking his seat at the moment.”

Care assistant Damion Steele, from Merseyside, said he knew the men were brothers.

The 23-year-old said: "A friend of mine knows the guy and asked if I would tweet Russell Brand because he doesn't want to be involved.

"Everyone is praising him for standing up to Russell Brand but if he has links to Ukip then the public should know about it."

On the show Brand condemned Mr Farage as a "pound shop Enoch Powell" after the Ukip leader insisted immigration was driving down people's quality of life.

Dismissing a suggestion from an Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) board member that there is "masses" of room in Britain, Mr Farage said: "If you fly into Gatwick you will see lots of green spaces, that is certainly true.

"However, if you have a country in which the population goes up as a direct result of immigration, what you find is not a shortage of green fields ... you find a shortage of primary school place, you find a shortage of GP surgeries."

But Brand hit back by comparing the MEP to Tory politician Powell, who is known for his 1968 "rivers of blood" speech on immigration.

"I sometimes feel worried about you, Nigel Farage ... immigrants are not causing the economic problems and suffering we are experiencing," he said.

"As much as any of us I enjoy seeing Nigel Farage in a boozer with a pint and a fag laughing off his latest scandals about breastfeeding or whatever, I enjoy it.

"But this man is not a cartoon character. He ain't Del Boy. He ain't Arthur Daley.

"He is a pound shop Enoch Powell, and we've got to watch him."

* Fleet Street Fox on Question Time: Did we just witness the end of Russell Brand?