UKIP have been forced to withdraw their support for a General Election candidate after he made comments about Jews and Africans on his Twitter account.

The political party were pressured into withdrawing their support for Captain Paddy Singh, who is standing for the North Wiltshire seat, by the Hope Not Hate organisation after it was discovered he had made comments about Africans, Jews and Muslims on his Twitter account.

Cpt Paddy Singh told the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald: "My tweets were reactions to news items. Maybe I should not have made those comments and maybe I should have gone away to digest those articles before commenting on them. 

"There is no question of being racist but I would like to apologise to anyone I may have offended. I hope this does not affect my candidacy."

A spokesman for Hope Not Hate, who discovered the Tweets, said: "With comments about Chinese and Africans being animals and Israeli Jews being akin to Nazis, there was no way Singh should have ever been selected.

"He joins a long list of UKIP candidates making outrageous and offensive comments that was have long exposed."

UKIP are expected to release a statement at 6pm.