Brexit Party activists expelled over 'hideous' racist remarks

Two Brexit Party activists have been expelled from the party after they were recorded making "hideous" racist remarks while campaigning.

A local councillor and regional assistant manager were dumped after they were filmed by undercover reporters for Channel 4 in the key Hartlepool constituency.

Councillor David Mincher was recorded saying Muslims "live like animals" and claimed he had tried to bury a pig's head under a mosque which was under construction in the town.

"We tried to put a big pig's head in the concrete," he said. "We got over the fence. You know, when people were doing the groundwork. They had all the bouncers who do all the North East, were doing the security for that mosque. So when we got in they caught us."

But he later told the broadcaster he had fabricated the story "as a stupid act of showing off to your reporter".

Meanwhile, the party's North East assistant manager, Gordon Parkin, was recorded saying Muslims were "outbreeding us".

And asked about the number of immigrants in the town, he said people "won't have them" and they "persecute the bastards".

Hartlepool candidate and Brexit Party chairman, Richard Tice, said the party acted immediately to expel the pair for their "appalling" remarks.

"Both I and the Brexit Party totally condemn the hideous remarks in question in the strongest possible terms," he said.

"I would take the gravest exception to any attempt by Channel 4 to suggest that I or the Brexit Party in any way share, condone or was aware of these views and matters."

Mr Tice also claimed Channel 4 journalists may have breached electoral law with the report and accused the broadcaster of going to the "most extreme lengths" to discredit Brexit supporters.

But a spokesperson for the broadcaster said: "We stand by our journalism".

It comes after the party's Lincoln candidate, Reece Wilkes, urged voters in the marginal constituency back the Conservatives instead of him.

In a letter to party leader Nigel Farage, he wrote: "I do not wish to be responsible for Brexit being frustrated... in the next Parliament, by hindering a pro-Brexit Conservative candidate in a marginal seat."