Ukip candidate defends tweet suggesting Lenny Henry emigrate to a "black country"

His comments were made after Henry said more black and ethnic minority people should be in the creative industries.

Henwood, who is standing for election in Enfield, North London, said: “He (Henry) should emigrate to a black country. He does not have to live with whites.”

Later elaborating to the BBC, Henwood said: “I think if black people come to this country and don't like mixing with white people why are they here? If he (Henry) wants a lot of blacks around, go and live in a black country.”

He maintains the comments were not offensive.

Meanwhile, a Ukip spokesman told the BBC it was a “non-racist” party and any breach of its rules would be investigated.

However, the spokesman went on to suggest that other parties were “trawling” social media sites looking for such messages.

"One has to question why the other parties are spending hours behaving like secret police and trawling through the social media of Ukip candidates who are everyday men and women, rather than actually doing politics.

"Were we to return the favour we would find an even greater wealth of embarrassment and disgrace in the other three parties' ranks to also spread across the media."

Recently, party member Andre Lampitt was suspended for sending a series of tweets expressing his opinions on Muslims, AIDS, Syria and forced sterilisation.

This week, the party launched a £1.5m campaign claiming that Europeans are out to take employment away from those living in the UK ahead of the European Parliament elections next month.

As Nigel Farage defended the campaign, it was revealed that the man used in one of the print ads was an EU migrant from Ireland.