His face beaming with pride, Nigel Farage shakes the hand of one of his staunchest supporters.
However, the leader of the UK Independence Party is facing embarrassment today after it emerged the man, who is the party's Leicester candidate, has supported groups with extreme racist views.
Chris Scotton, 24, has 'liked' a series of controversial organisations including the English Defence League (EDL), a site suggesting racism is 'just ethnic banter' and a group 'joking' about 'losing a black friend in the dark'.
It comes as one of UKIP's members and Gloucestershire County Council candidate John Sullivan, was embroiled in a homophobic row, after he was accused of claiming exercise could 'prevent homosexuality.'
Controversial: Nigel Farage is pictured shaking hands with Chris Scotton , who is standing for the party in Leicester. Scotton has apparently 'liked' a Facebook group which suggests that racism is just 'ethnic banter'
Gay Star News accused Mr Sullivan of claiming in a Facebook post that regular physical exercise 'prevents' children from 'becoming' gay and the Victorian method of physical exercise 'released tension and thus avoided homosexuality'.
However, it is unclear whether these are Mr Sullivan's views or whether he was just talking about Victorian attitudes to sport and homosexuality.
The UKIP candidate for Newent applauded Russia for banning gay pride marches in Moscow, saying: 'Well done the Russians.'
He is facing criticism after making the comments, but is not believed to have been suspended from the party.
Mr Sullivan's comments were made on a Facebook group called 'Traditional Britain Group.'
UKIP claimed that they were the victims of a 'smear campaign' - but did not deny that their members had made the comments.
The UKIP candidate is facing criticism after making the comments, but is not believed to have been suspended from the party
Another UKIP row: John Sullivan, pictured here, is facing criticism after allegedly posting the comments
In an account under the name John Sullivan, the man congratulated Russia on its decision to ban gay marches
In a post on the 'Traditional Britain Group', the UKIP member made comments about the Victorians believing exercise prevented homosexuality
UKIP were today forced to suspend Mr Scotton after his apparent links to the EDL were highlighted by MailOnline.
It also confirmed another candidate standing in Suffolk was leaving the party after his previous membership in the British National Party (BNP) was exposed.
More...
New Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby bashes bankers as he hits out at City's 'culture of entitlement'
Tax break for married couples 'within six months': Cameron ready to defy Osborne and Clegg to force policy through
It means four UKIP candidates for Thursday's local elections have left the party in the last week because of extreme views.
The damaging revelations surrounding the party now threaten to undermine its efforts in the local elections.
It emerged today that a number of candidates in the local elections appeared on a British National Party membership list.
Others have claimed that paedophiles should be killed by vigilantes and people living in London should wear face masks to protect themselves from diseases brought into the country from Eastern Europeans.
Unpleasant: Mr Scotton appears to back the controversial far-right English Defence League on his Facebook page. This image shows his homepage
Worrying: Mr Scotton has also appeared to like these two controversial Facebook pages
The candidate pictured with Farage, Mr Scotton, backs a number of controversial groups on his Facebook page.
This includes him 'liking' the official page for the controversial far-right organisation English Defence League.
He has also 'liked' Facebook groups which include 'Racism? No mate it's just ethnic banter', 'No more mosques in Britain' and 'I hate it when I lose my black friend in the dark.'
He also likes the groups 'ban the burka in Britain' and 'Women deserve as much respect as men.. LOL joke'.
Odd: Mr Scotton previously appeared to have stood for the United People's Party which was against 'extremist politics' and 'hatred and intolerance'
The page was set up by Mr Scotton in July 2007. The top picture is a UKIP advert which includes the words: 'A Common Sense Approach to Immigration'.
The Facebook page reveals that he works at Trelleborg Industrial AVS in Leicester. He has 997 friends on his page.
Bizarrely, it appears that Mr Scotton was previously a member of the United People's Party in the Corby and East Northamptonshire Parliamentary By-Election last year.
Despite appearing to back extreme views now, the party literature which he appears on says 'No to hatred and intolerance' and 'no to extremist politics.'
On the leaflet, he is quoted as saying: 'I'm a young working man who has simply had enough of the way this country is run and I want to make a stand.'
Mr Scotton has not yet responded to requests for a comment.
A UKIP spokesman said it was suspending Mr Scotton because of his links to EDL.
'Mr Scotton will be suspended as a UKIP candidate and we will be investigating his case' he said.
Farage was forced to admit this week that the party had not properly checked all 1,700 candidates it is fielding in next week’s council elections.
Another candidate under fire today is Richard Wilkins, standing in the Isle of Wight.
He tweeted that Mick Philpott, who killed six of his children in a house fire, should have had 'chemical castration' to prevent him claiming benefits for more than two children.
The paper also reported that he objected to charges by police against 'three blokes who kill a pedo' adding, 'if they can't do it we will.'
A UKIP spokesman said he had now deleted the Tweets.
The UKIP candidate for Malling in Kent, David Waller, also wrote controversial comments in his blog by suggesting there was a risk of tuberculosis with the barriers to Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants being lifted next year.
He wrote: 'I would suggest not going to London after January 2014 unless you absolutely have to and if you do, adopt the Japanese practice of wearing a face mask.'
He later said the remark was not supposed to be taken seriously and that he is not xenophobic.
It has also emerged that three candidates in the local elections have appeared on a membership list for the British National Party (BNP) which was leaked in 2009.
One of those is Alan Ryall, standing in Wickham in Suffolk. According to The Times, he admitted he had been a member of the party for 'one or two years' but that he now found the party 'too extreme'.
He told the newspaper: 'I wasn't aware it was an issue. I've never been asked the question.' He added that he would have declared his lapsed membership if he had been asked.
Today, UKIP told MailOnline that Mr Ryall was leaving the party because of his links to the BNP.
Extreme: UKIP candidates David Waller , left, and Richard Wilkins, right, have also expressed extreme views
Trainee barrister Peter Lucas, 24, who is a UKIP town councillor in Ferndown, Dorset, was also listed as a student member. He denied ever signing up to the party but did admit to contacting it to find out more about its views.
Chris Byrne, a UKIP member, standing in Surrey, is also on the leaked BNP list. He has strongly denied ever signing up to the party and suggested that somebody else put him on the list.
Earlier this week, Anna-Marie Crampton, a UKIP candidate in East Sussex, was suspended by the UKIP over reports she posted extreme views on a conspiracy theorist website called 'Secrets of The Fed'.
Crampton, 57, is allegedly quoted as saying: ’Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.
’The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist jews and financed by the bankers to make the general public all over the world to feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.’
Mrs Crampton has denied responsibility for the postings online.
Just two weeks ago Mrs Crampton posed with Mr Farage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
A spokesman said: ’These comments are really way out there and really hard-core anti-Zionism.’
Concerns: Local election candidate Peter Lucas, left,has been listed as a student member of the BNP. Anna-Marie Crampton, right, is alleged to have denied the holocaust claiming World War Two was engineered by Zionists to create the state of Israel. Both have denied the allegations
A spokesman for British Influence, which is campaigning against UKIP policies on Europe said: ’If true, this sort of holocaust denial from a UKIP candidate is further evidence of the toxic mix of anti-semitism and cuckoo conspiracy theories that run rife in UKIP.'
’The fact is that UKIP has more than 1,700 candidates being fielded in next Thursday's local elections - almost as many as the Lib Dems – and one has to ask oneself how many more of them have skeletons in the cupboard.’
Susan Bowen, from Boscastle in Cornwall, was dropped this week as a candidate in elections to the county’s unitary council after it emerged she was once a member of the BNP.
In county council elections UKIP is fielding more candidates than the Lib Dems.
But the dramatic election push could come at a cost, after Mr Farage admitted that not all of them have been properly vetted to ensure they do not hold extreme views.
He said that a ’rigorous testing procedure’ was in place to choose candidates for next year’s elections to the European Parliament, and the 2015 general election.
This tested ’people’s knowledge, their ability with media - you know, full credit checks, police checks and all the rest of it’.
Anti-Zionist comments allegedly made from the Facebook account of Anna-Marie Crampton. She was later suspended while the party investigates
Anna-Marie Crampton pictured left with UKIP leader Nigel Farage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mr Farage admitted that not all candidates have been properly vetted to ensure they do not hold extreme views
But he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: ’I’ll be honest with you, we don’t have the party apparatus in a very short space of time to fully vet 1,700 people.
’We have made people sign declaration forms, expressing the fact that they’ve never been part of political parties that we consider to be wholly undesirable. By that I mean the BNP.
’And, you know, we ask people if there is a problem with a criminal record or whatever else it may be, please tell us.
’I have no doubt that amongst those 1,700 one or two people will have slipped through the net that we’d rather not have had.’
Mr Farage has previously criticised Tory leader David Cameron for his 2006 claim that ’Ukip is sort of a bunch of ... fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly’.
UKIP said in a statement: 'UKIP has been subject to a co-ordinated smear campaign. We have evidence that Conservative Campaign Head Quarters has been scrutinising each and everyone of our 1,732 candidates, monitoring every social media output over the last few years. Were we inclined to return the favour, we would find even more examples to use against them.
'We deem that using our candidates as cannon fodder to undermine a political campaign, morally reprehensible and downright dirty.
'We are an open minded party who believes that ordinary hard working men and women who want to serve their communities should not be subject to a political lynch mob. We are fighting this campaign on principle NOT dirty politics.
'However, we absolutely do not condone homophobic, xenophobic, extreme nor unpalatable views, therefore we will take each individual case on merit.
'Yet, were we to subject the other thousands of candidates working hard across the country for their respective political parties to the same level of scrutiny, we would equally find reason enough to launch a counter offensive.
'Yet it is not in the interest of British politics, nor the British people, to subjugate ordinary people to the same level of treatment.'