BBC Question Time audience member kicked off show by David Dimbleby is hard-line activist

An audience member kicked off BBC Question Time by its presenter David Dimbleby is today revealed as a hard-line left wing activist with a long record of campaigning against the Conservative Party.

Steve German was asked to leave after repeatedly heckling the panel and shouting that the Tories had lost the general election.

When the pro-Remain campaigner Gina Miller began talking about the hung Parliament Theresa May will have to deal with he shouted: "She's a zombie Prime Minister!"

Around 40 minutes into the programme, being broadcast from Plymouth, Mr Dimbleby lost his patience and told Mr German it was time for him to go.

It is thought to be only the second time a Question Time audience member has been ejected from the programme.

Now it has emerged that Mr German is a committed campaigner for the Socialist Party and supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.

In the 2015 general election he stood as a candidate for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in Taunton Deane, polling just just 118 votes.

Mr German, 56, had said that if elected he would not accept the £67,060 salary paid to MPs at the time but take the 'average wage of a skilled worker' instead.

His Facebook page includes posts criticising the Monarchy and the Queen, describing her as “parasitical.”

In one post Mr German said: “Under a socialist society, there would be no place for these parasitical, ancient symbols of privilege.”

He has also posted links to online article about the Grenfell Tower disaster claiming the tragedy which last week killed at least 79 people was the result of the Government’s austerity policies.

Last year Mr German had a conviction for causing criminal damage quashed by a judge who ruled he had been wrongly found guilty by magistrates of scratching the paintwork of a BMW car during a road rage incident.

Judge James Patrick overturned the original sentence imposed by Taunton Magistrates' Courts which saw Mr German ordered to pay a total of £970 in fines, compensation and costs.

Mr German, who had accused his opponents of using his conviction as a "political weapon", said at the time: "I now look forward to being able to spend my time more productively in building both the Socialist Party and TUSC and assisting in the process of defending Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party against the co-ordinated attacks of the Tories, the Blairites and the right wing in the Labour Party."

During Thursday evening’s Question Time Mr Dimbleby asked Mr German to stop shouting over others, telling him: "Don't shout out, I'll bring a microphone to you in a bit. But if you keep shouting out nobody can hear you."

At one point Mr German lambasted the panel, saying: “All the pundits, all the academics, all the commentaries, all the politicians, the career politicians represented gathered around this panel here tonight, guaranteed that Theresa May's gamble would pay off, that she would come back with a majority of 100 seats, 120 seats – that Corbyn would be buried under a landslide.

"Jeremy Corbyn has proven that anti-austerity policies are popular – that's the question. The Tories and the Blairites lost that election."