Nigel Farage: Godfrey Bloom Should Lose Whip [VIDEO]

Ukip leader Nigel Farage will be urging that the party whip is removed from MEP Godfrey Bloom after a conference outburst in which he called women "sluts" and then attacked a journalist when challenged about the party's atitude on race.

Farage said that Bloom had "gone beyond the pale" and promised to discuss his position with Ukip's party chairman.

Farage was speaking after Bloom said that a debate on women in politics was "full of sluts" and hit journalist Michael Crick around the head with a brochure after a question about the lack of black people in Ukip's conference literature.

That incident was captured by Channel 4. video here:

Farage told the BBC that the MEP's actions were "ridiculous and diversionary".

"We're launching new policies on energy, education and the NHS, some radical and different stuff, and the comments on one individual has overshadowed it," Farage said.

"The trouble with Godfrey is he's not a racist or extremist, or anti-women, but he has a rather old-fashioned, Territorial Army sense of humour."

When pressed about the action he would take, Farage said: "Unlike the recent comments that I'm some sort of Machiavelli, Ukip [reules] chapter 11 prohibit me from taking any sport of action whatsoever.

"Given this is our party conference, eight months out from a European election I intend to win, my own view is that Godfrey's behaviour is selfish and is beginning to overshadow all the good things that are happening today."

He would recommend to party chairman Steve Crowther that the whip is removed from Bloom.

"Godfrey has gone beyond the pale and we have no option to remove the whip," said Farage.