A Conservative candidate for next month’s Highland Council election was last night unrepentant after coming under fire for describing the SNP as “National Socialism light”.

German-born Reiner Luyken, a retired journalist, has had a running battle with SNP politicians who have branded the comparison “ridiculous and offensive”.

The Nazi Party in Germany was officially titled the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Hours after the candidate selections were published, Moray MP and SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson took to social networks, urging people to search Mr Luyken’s name on the internet to see “some of the offensive stuff” he had written.

Mr Robertson said it was “unbelievable” that the Conservatives had selected him as a candidate in Dingwall and Seaforth.

Speaking yesterday from his home in Achiltibuie, Mr Luyken, 65, said he had opted to stand for election for the first time for two reasons – to challenge SNP policies and to try to improve the democracy of Highland Council.

He said he had previously had a dispute with Mr Robertson, dating back to 2011 when he wrote to the editor of the German national weekly newspaper Die Zeit to complain about an article he had written that poked fun at Alex Salmond.

“He complained that I’d been unable to report impartially and accurately, demanding that I should not write about Scotland any more,” Mr Luyken said.

Asked if he stood by his statement that the SNP was “modern national socialism light,” he said: “Yes, absolutely. It’s a nationalist and a socialist party that has elements that were driven to extreme 80 years ago.

“That combination of nationalism and socialism, those ideological factors, are basically an illiberal ideology.”

Mr Luyken, who has lived in the Highlands since 1978, said a complaint to the Scottish Tories’ headquarters about his potential candidature prior to his selection had been looked into and disregarded as “mischievous”.

The SNP has previously responded to his choice of words as “obviously ridiculous and offensive to SNP voters”.