Godfrey Bloom, Ex-Ukip MEP: It's Easier To Tell People I'm A Child Molester Than A Politician

Godfrey Bloom, the outspoken MEP who had the Ukip whip withdrawn after jokingly calling a roomful of women "sluts", has made another gag - involving child molesters.

Speaking to the Huffington Post UK, Bloom, who is currently an independent MEP and not standing again in this Thursday's European elections, said that he was looking forward to no longer having to tell people that he was an MEP. "Sometimes I try and pretend that I'm a child molester," he quipped.

In less close-to-the-knuckle remarks, the ex-Ukip MEP, who infamously derided Britain's aid to "bongo bongo land", weighed in over Ukip's disastrous carnival that the party hosted in Croydon in a bid to rebuff allegations of racism.

Bloom said that events like Ukip's carnival smacked of "tokenism" and were a sign that the party was "slipping into political correctness".

He said: "Ukip have got a problem and that is you tend to inherit the politically correct lexicon and you start nodding in the direction of tokenism and it follows through for policy. They're slipping into political correctness.

"I fear we may be drifting into a ‘don't frighten the horses' policy," he said, warning that the party was adopting an attitude of "let's go mainstream and let's do all the things the main parties do".

Nigel Farage has fought to dismiss suggestions that Ukip was racist, with the Ukip leader using a London rally earlier this month to show off the party's ethnic candidates, saying: "Please do not call us a racist party."

Ukip's Croydon carnival was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after the steel band walked out and dozens of anti-Ukip protesters had assembled for the carnival, with one holding up a sign saying: "We are Romanians and we don't feel comfortable with your racism."

Bloom said that Ukip's tactics to rebuff allegations of racism "ring a little like saying 'Some of my best friends are black'", but admitted that it can be "very difficult' to avoid doing anything else.

"If you accuse a party of being racist, they're going to stand up and say well that's not true we've got lots of BME people. It's very difficult, how would you counter that accusation?"

Farage was forced to back out of appearing at the Ukip carnival, where he was set to make a speech and an appeal to black and ethnic minority voters, citing security concerns.

Winston McKenzie, who stood as the Ukip candidate for parliament in the constituency's 2012 by-election and organised the carnival, said there were "certain situations you have to avoid" and that Croydon had "become a dump".

Bloom declined to say if he agreed with McKenzie's about the area becoming a "dump" as "I don't think I've been to Croydon for 40 years and I couldn't tell you how it is."

The ex-Ukip MEP, who used by the party's economics spokesman, attacked the reporting of the carnival for "keeping out" Mckenzie but "interviewing the British blacks playing in the steel band."

Farage earlier this week tried to explain away controversial comments about the desirability of living next door to Romanians by saying he was "tired out".

Bloom, who shares a flat with Farage in Brussels, said that the Ukip leader would be "over-tired at this stage of the campaign" and "been run ragged".

He partly blamed the fact that Farage was a "hopeless delegator", remarking: "General Monty made sure he got his 7 hours a night, and he wasn't making mistakes!"