An MEP candidate for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party once praised a colleague for using a Nazi slogan in the European parliament and has a history of using vulgar and obscene language about women in social media posts.

John Tennant, who according to polls is expected to win a seat in the European parliament as one of Farage’s three candidates in the north-east, also made references to being intoxicated and suggested that Liverpool fans were criminals.

The revelations about Tennant’s Facebook posts come after it emerged two senior officials from Farage’s pro-Brexit party were still listed as directors weeks after they were supposed to have cut all ties after the Guardian discovered antisemitic and offensive Facebook posts by them.

In Tennant’s case, the offensive remarks were posted on Facebook in 2010 and 2011. In November 2010, he praised Godfrey Bloom, then a Ukip MEP, on the day he was ejected from the European parliament for directing a Nazi slogan at a German colleague, writing online: “Godfrey Bloom you are a legend! Say no more.”

In other cases, Tennant made a joke in which he referred to sex acts involving a young girl. In another case, he joked about his wife bringing home a sex toy, but bemoaned that he was considered a “pervert” for buying his own, which he described using vulgar and obscene terms.

Q&A How do European parliamentary elections work in the UK? Show The UK elects 73 members (MEPs) to the European parliament, which is made up of 751 MEPs elected by the 28 member states of the EU. The UK is split into 12 European electoral regions, and each region is represented by between three and 10 MEPs. The constituencies are:

South East England (10 MEPs)

London (8)

North West England (8)

East of England (7)

West Midlands (7)

South West England (including Gibraltar) (6)

Yorkshire and the Humber (6)

Scotland (6)

East Midlands (5)

Wales (4)

North East England (3)

Northern Ireland (3) You can find out who is standing for election in your area here. In England, Scotland and Wales, voters can choose to vote for one party or individual. The ballot paper lists the parties standing with the names of their potential MEPs, as well as any individuals who are standing as independent candidates. The D’Hondt method of proportional representation is used to calculate how many seats each party or individual receives. In Northern Ireland, the single transferable vote method is used, where each voter ranks candidates in order of preference, marking 1 beside their most preferred candidate, 2 beside their second choice, and so on. These votes are then used to allocate Northern Ireland’s three MEPs. Those elected as MEPs on 23 May will represent the UK when the new European parliament assembles on 1 July, until such time as the UK ceases to be a member of the European Union.

Contacted by the Guardian, Tennant referred enquiries to a spokesman for the Brexit party who said: “This is very low-grade stuff. To be frank, they are weak jokes of the sort you hear a thousand times in Hartlepool on any Friday night, and that’s it. This is offence archaeology and I think the public are getting bored of it.”

One former Ukip adviser said Tennant formerly worked in Brussels and was considered to be close to Farage. “Tennant’s role was quite high up, setting up speaker events for Nigel in that region of the country. This is not someone who is [just] someone in a branch, rather he has been a key member of Nigel’s backroom staff and operations for at least a decade,” they said.

The former Ukip adviser added: “Nigel said about the Ukip candidate that joked about rape that he would not stand in his party, but he has someone standing in his party who jokes about paedophilia. For someone to be in a position, that is far beyond the code of conduct.”

Farage’s pro-Brexit party announced last month that its treasurer, Michael McGough, had made “unacceptable statements” and would not have a role in the organisation after it was reported he had referred in some Facebook messages to Ed and David Miliband and Peter Mandelson as having “shallow UK roots” or being “devoid of UK roots”.

He said many survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire were “illegal aliens enjoying an amnesty”.

On 20 March the party’s original leader, Catherine Blaiklock, resigned after the Guardian asked her about a series of deleted anti-Islam Twitter messages.

Tennant, the office manager for the former Ukip MEP Jonathan Arnott, was one of five Ukip councillors in Hartlepool to quit the party last January in protest at what they described as its lurch to the right. He currently sits as an independent on Hartlepool borough council.

It is not the first time Tennant has run for a post he wants to abolish. In 2017, he was Ukip’s candidate for Tees Valley mayor and campaigned to get rid of the role if he was elected. He finished in last place with 9% of the vote.