Nigel Farage: There is also a ‘half black’ person in our manifesto

Nigel Farage on the campaign trail earlier this week

Nigel Farage has been challenged again over why a journalist was booed when they asked him why there was only one black person featured in his manifesto.

He said that as well as a “fully black person” (who was featured on the international aid page) there was also a “half black” person photographed for the manifesto who didn’t get a mention.

He said: “Well firstly there was one fully black person. There was another one of our leading spokesman who is half black and that didn’t get a mention. So the premise was wrong.

I thought what happened was really interesting. There was a journalist from one of our leading daily newspapers who made the comment you know, there’s only one black.

“And what happened was that there was an eruption in the room as our black and ethnic minority candidates stood up and looked at this guy in a pretty hostile way.

“What they were saying was we’re just about sick to death of the sneering media class trying to make Ukip out to be something completely other than it is.

“We’re a non-racist, non-sectarian political party but we don’t have all female quotas, we don’t have all black quotas, we treat everybody as being equal.

“Over 10% of our candidates come from BME backgrounds. We’re probably more diverse in our membership than some of the other parties who talk about all of this in a sort of ‘holier than thou’ way.”