Ukip sacks candidate Robert Blay for threatening to shoot his Tory rival

'If this lad turns up to be our prime minister I will personally put a bullet in him'

(Getty Images)

Ukip’s penultimate day of campaigning appeared to spontaneously combust after a series of embarrassing incidents, including the suspension of a parliamentary candidate who was recorded threatening to shoot his Conservative rival.

Robert Blay, standing in North East Hampshire, spoke to an undercover reporter about his Conservative rival Ranil Jayawardena. “If this lad turns up to be our prime minister I will personally put a bullet in him. That’s how strong I feel about it,” he said in comments filmed by The Mirror. “I won’t have this f***er as our prime minister. I absolutely loathe him.”

Mr Blay (left), a former Conservative Party member, also appeared to suggest Mr Jayawardena, whose parents are from Sri Lanka, had deliberately made his wife pregnant in order to win votes. “He’s 29 years old. He’s got his missus to drop a kid just before the election. He’s planned the birth of the child, there’s no doubt about that. He’s a slippery b******. I’ve worked with him in the Tories.”

Mr Jayawardena, who is Conservative deputy leader of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, said he was “shocked” to hear the comments.

Ranil Jayawardena, the Conservative party candidate for Northeast Hampshire (Getty) (Getty Images)

Separately, a Ukip candidate standing in Tony Blair’s old seat was facing calls that he be suspended after offensive remarks about the Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown surfaced from last year. John Leathley, Ukip’s parliamentary hopeful in Sedgefield, Co Durham, apologised for lurid statements that he made on Twitter while Ms Alibhai-Brown was appearing on the BBC’s Question Time programme last November.

The Facebook postings included statements that the commentator “needs a good shag” and to “give one depending on what mood she is in”. Mr Leathley said: “I would like to apologise unreservedly to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I read what I wrote now, I am shocked by them and am appalled and deeply ashamed of my words.”

Ms Alibhai-Brown described the comments as “sexist, it’s racist, it’s violent”. Labour’s Phil Wilson who is contesting the seat, wrote on Twitter: “Ukip should sack parliamentary candidate for Sedgefield. His comments against women are obscene and disgusting.”

And in one final development, Elliot Nichols, a Ukip councillor in South West Surrey, announced he would defect back to the Conservatives after admitting a “grave error” in moving to Ukip.