UKIP leader embarrassed by member's racist comment

LONDON (Reuters) - A local councillor for Britain's UK Independence Party (UKIP) has been filmed saying she had a problem with "negroes" and would not sit next to one at a dinner party - a new embarrassment for the right-wing party before a national election in May. Rozanne Duncan was expelled from UKIP after it learned of the remarks, made in a BBC documentary which will air on Sunday night. But the incident will still feed the perception that UKIP, which is against the European Union and wants curbs on immigration, harbours a number of racists and bigots. Duncan was a UKIP councillor in Thanet, southeast England, where party leader Nigel Farage hopes to win a seat in parliament in the election on May 7. "The only people I do have problems with are negroes and I don't know why," Duncan said in footage filmed late last year. "I don't whether there is something in my psyche or whether it is karma from a previous life...but I really do have a problem with people with negroid features." Duncan goes on to say she would decline an invite to a dinner party if she was to sit next to a black person. Farage condemned Duncan's comments and said she has been expelled by the party. "What was said was wholly inappropriate, at odds with what UKIP stands for and we just don't tolerate that kind of thing," Farage told the BBC. Prime Minister David Cameron once sought to dismiss the party as full of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", but its rise in popularity now threatens his Conservative Party's chances of being re-elected. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)