Nigel Farage turned fire on the Labour Party this evening, as he sought to deflect criticism about controversial Reform UK candidates.

In front of a hostile BBC Question Time audience, Mr Farage was accused of racism and failing to properly vet Reform candidates and activists.

The row came after Channel 4 secretly filmed activists making racist and bigoted comments while out campaigning for Mr Farage in Essex.

However the leader of Britain’s second most popular party turned fire on Labour, arguing: “The Labour candidate in Clacton has made some deeply offensive, racist remarks – so much so that Keir Starmer has banished him from the constituency and said ‘go to the Midlands'”.

“You get people in all parties saying wrong things and bad things. Wherever I find it, I always drive it out and I’ve done that all my career.”

Labour’s candidate in Clacton, Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, once tweeted that “white man tears” were his “favourite drink”.

Nigel Farage faced a difficult set of questions about yesterday’s Channel 4 investigation, however he insisted that evidence that the activist in question was an actor raised serious questions about the report.

Mr Farage explained: “It turns out the man that did this is an actor. He was contacted by the Telegraph this morning, he denied he was an actor”.

“We then found out actually he is an actor, he’s worked in the past for Channel 4. On his own site he says ‘I’m a well-spoken actor with an alter ego, I do rough talking.

“Let me tell you from the minute he turned up in that office in Clacton and I saw him, he was acting from the very start.

“He even says on his website: ‘Hire me, I do undercover filming’.”

The Reform UK leader didn’t say whether the actor was paid, or whether he was doing it of his own volition to get additional work.

Channel 4 has denied all the allegations from Mr Farage and Reform UK.

During a wave of accusations from members of the audience, Mr Farage insisted he has done more than any other living politician to drive the far right out of British politics.

He argued: “I took on the BNP just over a decade ago, I said to their voters ‘if this is a protest vote but you don’t support their racist agenda, don’t vote for them vote for me’ and we destroyed them”.

“I’ve never allowed in any parties I’ve led anybody who was even a member of an extremist organisation to join our parties.”