nigel farage has dismissed criticism of the lack of diversity in ukip's manifesto by claiming there was a 'half black' party spokesman featured prominently   and 'one fully black person' the ukip leader made the remarks after being asked at his manifesto launch last week to justify the scarcity of black and asian faces in the ukip manifesto it includes several photographs of the party's top team although it was suggested the only black face in the document appeared on a page about overseas aid scroll down for video  nigel farage has dismissed criticism of the lack of diversity in ukip's manifesto by claiming there was a 'half black' party spokesman featured prominently   and 'one fully black person' the question provoked noisy barracking, including from a group of black and asian candidates attending the launch mr farage said the premise was wrong, with the picture of the party's immigration spokesman steven woolfe ignored he told magic radio: 'well firstly there was one fully black person' mr farage added: 'there was another one of our leading spokesman who is half black and that didn't get a mention and he featured very prominently on page six so the premise was wrong 'i thought what happened was really interesting there was a journalist from one of our leading daily newspapers who made the comment you know, there's only one black 'and what happened was that there was an eruption in the room as our black and ethnic minority candidates stood up and looked at this guy in a pretty hostile way' the ukip leader   trying on hats at a campaign stop in canterbury, kent, today   made the remarks after being asked at his manifesto launch last week to justify the scarcity of black and asian faces in the ukip manifesto  the ukip manifesto included several photographs of the party's top team although it was suggested the only black face in the document appeared on a page about overseas aid  mr farage added: 'what they were saying was we're just about sick to death of the sneering media class trying to make ukip out to be something completely other than it is 'we're a non racist, non sectarian political party but we don't have all female quotas, we don't have all black quotas, we treat everybody as being equal 'i think we're a multi racial society i think the multicultural society is a much more contentious point and perhaps that's the bit that may have gone slightly wrong 'over 10% of our candidates come from bme backgrounds we're probably more diverse in our membership than some of the other parties who talk about all of this in a sort of 'holier than thou' way' mr farage said the party's immigration spokesman steven woolfe   who has dual heritage   was 'half black' the ukip manifesto launch was overshadowed by a row over the number of black and asian people included, after a journalist pointed out that the only image showed someone from an ethnic minority   an african woman in the overseas aid section  ukip has also proposed to amend the smoking ban to allow pubs and clubs to open smoking rooms the manifesto states these rooms would have to be properly ventilated and physically separate from non smoking areas mr farage said: 'there are 76 pages in our manifesto and that is one little sentence tucked away in there 'it's about freedom of choice that's the point thirty pubs a week are closing and a lot of them particularly in built up areas where they haven't got a big food trade 'they rely on people going into the pub at five, six o'clock after a hard day's work and a lot of those people might not smoke all day but they want a smoke with their drink that evening' he added of his party's policy: 'would that burden the health service? well let's put it like this: the nhs says, that smoking related illnesses cost it £2 billion a year, all right? tobacco tax is £12billion a year so i don't quite buy the argument'
ukip asian steven woolfe african
ukip leader asked to justify lack of black and asian faces in manifesto . but he said there was one 'half black' person and one 'fully black person'. ukip's immigration spokesman steven woolfe has mixed heritage . included in the manifesto was also a photo of an african receiving aid 