The leader of Ukip Paul Nuttall has backed his immigration spokesman after he re-tweeted a slogan mired in racist controversy.
John Bickley, who is also the party's treasurer, re-tweeted a cartoon with the words "If you want a jihadi for a neighbour - vote Labour" to his 4,400 followers.
Mr Bickley, a member of Ukip's national executive committee, has since deleted the tweet and, according to Mr Nuttall, has apologised.
The party leader, speaking at his by-election campaign office in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday, said Mr Bickley had been unaware of the contentious roots of the slogan.
Other Twitter users, critical of the Ukip spokesman, re-posted Mr Bickley's retweet alongside a version of a campaign leaflet from the 1964 Smethwick general election, issued in support of the Conservative Party's ultimately successful candidate Peter Griffiths.
The original campaign slogan in the Midlands constituency used a racist term, substituted for the word "jihadi" in the version Mr Bickley re-tweeted.
Mr Nuttall, backing his immigration spokesman, said: "He's got my support, absolutely, he's apologised for it."
He added: "It wasn't clever and John's apologised and he's taken it down."
Mr Nuttall, who is battling to secure the Labour-held Stoke Central constituency in a by-election vote on February 23, said Mr Bickley had been "mortified".
The party leader said: "He's not a politics anorak, John, and I don't think he understood the history of that slogan which goes back to the 1960s.
"That was pointed out to him and as soon as it was, he was mortified by it and he took it down and he's apologised."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel