UK election candidates: 'Nasty party' Ukip faces fresh questions on eve of vote
Candidate Robert Blay was filmed apparently threatening to kill his Tory rival
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukip's final day of campaigning before the general election began with questions over the suitability of its candidates after a series of scandals on the cusp of the vote.
Deputy party leader Paul Nuttall was grilled on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about comments made by Ukip's North East Hampshire candidate Robert Blay, who was filmed apparently making racist remarks and threatening to shoot his Tory rival.
While speaking to investigators from the Daily Mirror at a public meeting in Ramsgate on Sunday, Mr Blay said he would "put a bullet between the eyes" of Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena and also accused him of being "not British enough to be in our parliament".
Mr Nuttall was played the comments on air on Wednesday morning, and he admitted they were "pretty woeful".
"We've suspended him immediately, which is the right thing to do and we do have a history of getting rid of people when they do something wrong very quickly indeed," he said.
Mr Nuttall added that Ukip doesn't have "the monopoly on [scandals like] this" - but the Mirror report came as it also emerged that a Ukip candidate standing in Tony Blair’s old seat had made deeply offensive remarks about the Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
Ms Alibhai-Brown said the comments were "sexist, racist and violent" and asked: "Was he drunk?"
She said: "I've always said Ukip was the nasty party and we find out again and again with incidents like this."
In a separate development, Elliot Nichols, a Ukip councillor in South West Surrey, announced he would defect back to the Conservatives after admitting leaving the Tories for Nigel Farage's party in 2013.
Mr Nichols said he wanted to "rectify" what he called "a grave error of judgement". He said that a vote for Mr Farage increased the likelihood of a Labour victory, and issued a parting shot at Ukip over the party's repeated "nasty soundbites".
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