Paul Nuttall supports bringing back the death penalty and said in a BBC television interview on Monday that he “would have pulled the lever on people like Ian Brady".

The UK Independence Party leader also said that he would support the waterboarding of terrorist suspects if it foiled a terrorist attack.

Mr Nuttall, who was grilled in an half hour long interview by BBC presenter Andrew Neil on BBC One on Monday evening, said he backed the death penalty for terrorists and child killers.

In the interview Mr Nuttall singled out the killers of drummer Lee Rigby and Moors murderer Ian Brady, who died of natural causes this month, as people who deserved the death penalty.

Pushed on whether he would be “an MP or an executioner”, Mr Nuttall said: “Well, I don’t want to be Albert Pierrepoint, that’s not what I’m going to go on to when I’m out of politics.

“What I will say is that, you know, they asked me that question, if I’m prepared to stand up say that I believe in the death penalty, then you know, maybe I would pull the lever on people like Ian Brady in the past.”