Nigel Farage today tried to downplay controversial views held by Reform UK election candidates – including one who backed appeasing Hitler – suggesting it was just ‘ordinary’ pub banter.

He was quizzed over remarks made by some of the party’s slate of election hopefuls, including Ian Gribbin, who suggested the UK should not have fought Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

In a difficult LBC phone-in he suggested his predecessor as leader, Richard Tice, was to blame for the failure to vet candidates, saying he had only been in the post for nine days.

Asked why they had not been deselected by Reform, Mr Farage said: ‘I can’t, they are legally on the ballot paper. I can disown them, I might well do that… its ordinary folk down the pub speak.’

He was quizzed over remarks made by some of the party’s slate of election hopefuls, including Ian Gribbin, who suggested the Uk should not have fought Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Ian Gribbin, who is standing for Nigel Farage ‘s party in Bexhill and Battle, said that Britain would be better off today if it had taken up the German fascist dictator’s ‘offer of neutrality’.

In comments made in 2022, unearthed shortly after the 80th anniversary of D-Day, he criticised Britain for prioritising ‘weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people’ by staying out of the conflict.

Mr Gribbin, who is standing for Nigel Farage’s party in Bexhill and Battle in Sussex , said that Britain would be better off today if it had taken up the German fascist dictator’s ‘offer of neutrality’.

In comments made in 2022, unearthed shortly after the 80th anniversary of D-Day, he criticised Britain for prioritising ‘weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people’ by staying out of the conflict.

In remarks made on the conservative Unherd website and unearthed by the BBC he said the UK had to ‘exorcise the cult of Churchill and recognize that in both policy and military strategy, he was abysmal’.

Mr Gribbin had previously written on the site that women were the ‘sponging gender’ who ‘only take from society’.

He tonight apologised for his comments, telling the BBC: ‘I apologise for these old comments and withdraw them unreservedly and the upset that they have caused.’

Mr Gribbin said that he himself had been ‘upset at the way these comments were taken out of context especially when my mother was the daughter of Russian Jews fleeing persecution.’

Mr Farage used the phone-in to claim his party was close to a ‘tipping point’ where it would eclipse the Conservative Party.

He pointed to a poll for Sky News which put Reform just one point behind the Tories.

‘Do I think I’m capable of leading a national opposition to a Labour Party with a big majority, where I can stand up and hold them to account on issues? Yes.’

He added: ‘I would be prepared to lead the centre-right in this country, a centre-right that stands up for small business, a centre-right that believes in borders, a centre-right that isn’t scared of standing up for the British people.’