A UKIP candidate standing for election in North Wiltshire has been suspended by his party after being accused of racism following a series of controversial tweets dating back to 2014.

Captain Paddy Singh, who has run a bespoke travel agents in Salisbury for the last ten years, was suspended from the party on Friday evening after anti-racism campaigners Hope Not Hate highlighted tweets where he made references to Nazi Jews and compared Pakistani's to animals. In another tweet the 75-year-old tweeted: "At times I ask myself were the Nazis right in herding the Jews into concentration camps."

Cpt Singh, who denied being racist, said: "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.

“I apologise unreservedly because none of my comments have been against nationalities but against government policies of the countries you mentioned. Secondly these comments have been made much before I was even considered to be the UKIP candidate.

"My apologies again to the nationalities I was supposed to have been to racist to, the candidates who claim I was racist and the UKIP who may have been flooded with complaints on the comments that were interpreted wrongly.

“I leave it to them to take whatever action it deems fit as far as my candidature is concerned, and no matter what will always believe that their policies are what I consider best for the country rather than what other parties announce.”

The sting was part of Hope Not Hate's weekly round up, where contentious social media posts from Nicole Bushill and Alan Harris standing in Chatham and Aylesford and Oxford West and Abingdon were also highlighted.

A spokesman from Hope Not Hate said: ""With comments about Chinese and Africans being animals, and Israeli Jews being akin to Nazis, there was no way Singh should ever have been selected. He joins a long list of UKIP candidates making outrageous and offensive comments that we have long exposed.

"If it still wants to be taken seriously at the polls, post-Brexit, UKIP needs to seriously up its game and weed out the extremists and closet bigots hiding so openly within its ranks."

Wiltshire Council confirmed that Cpt Singh will still appear as a UKIP candidate on the ballot paper despite being suspended by the party.