Dick Delingpole doctored image to mock Tories who have been trying to find embarrassing pictures of Ukip candidates

Ukip has stumbled into a fresh row about Nazism after a candidate posted a doctored image of himself on Twitter standing next to Adolf Hitler.

The party apologised for the Photoshopped image and said that Dick Delingpole, a candidate in Worcester who is the brother of the writer and climate change sceptic James, had a “very deep sense of humour”.

Delingpole, a businessman who re-enacts scenes from history in his spare time, decided to doctor the image to mock the way in which the Tories have been trawling social media sites to find embarrassing pictures of Ukip candidates. He placed a shot of his head on to the bodies of three men in Nazi uniforms standing next to Hitler.

Writing for the Daily Telegraph under a copy of the doctored image, Delingpole said: “It’s no secret that I’m currently standing as a Ukip candidate for the forthcoming council elections. What was a secret until now is my Nazi past.

“As the photo above proves beyond doubt, I was present at one of Hitler’s rallies. I was also clearly part of an early cloning [experiment]. And in case you hadn’t yet worked it out, this is all utter nonsense. But it has been seized upon by my Tory opponent in Thursday’s local election.”

Delingpole was alerted to the Tory interest in the doctored photograph when a reporter from the Worcester News telephoned him. He maintains he has done nothing wrong.

“When the first ‘Ukip is a hotbed of closet Nazis’ thing started to happen – ie the major parties ordered all hands to the pumps to neutralise the Ukip threat – it was suggested that candidates purge their social media of anything that might prove embarrassing. Being a Delingpole I did the opposite. I am adamant that I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of, nothing that I wouldn’t happily share with the world.”

Ukip apologised but said Delingpole would not be expelled from the party. Carl Humphries, the party’s branch organiser for Worcester and Mid-Worcestershire, told the Worcester News: “I can assure you he is definitely not a Nazi or anything like that – he’s got a very deep sense of humour. He has been vetted by me; all our candidates are clean in every respect, but I am sorry if this offended people.”

Simon Geraghty, who is standing for the Conservative party in the same Riverside ward as Delingpole, told the Worcester News: “I find it absolutely sickening and abhorrent. I think the vast majority of British people will find this shocking – it’s not funny at all, it’s dreadful and I can’t believe he’s done it.”

The row follows the suspension of a Ukip candidate in Somerset after photos were published of him apparently making a Nazi salute. Alex Wood, 22, claimed that he was simply reaching out for a friend’s mobile phone during a Halloween party where he was dressed as a pirate [see footnote].

• This footnote was added on 4 April 2017. It was later found that the photograph had been taken out of context and wrongly interpreted. Police confirmed that the candidate had not made the comments on Facebook. A newspaper apologised.

