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Nigel Farage suggested Reform UK had been let down by a professional vetting company this morning as he dealt with questions about the latest example of someone with a history of expressing extremist views being selected as a candidate.

He was responding to the news that Grant StClair-Armstrong has resigned from the party after it was discovered he had previously encouraged people to vote for the far-right British National party. But StClair-Armstrong remains on the ballot paper as the Reform UK candidate in North West Essex, where the business secretary Kemi Badenoch is defending her seat.

This particular case is a chap in his 70s, who 20 years ago said he was thinking of voting BNP as a protest vote, he was never a member of the BNP.

However, we don’t find that acceptable. Now, we did put in place – with quite a well-known political figure, who runs a professional vetting company – we put in place something, we spent a great deal of money on getting that vetting done, it wasn’t done, and I’ll talk more about that over the next couple of days.