Grimsby branded “poor” and “full of working class people” by UKIP candidate

Mike Hookem MEP, UKIP’s candidate for Grimsby, has been slammed by local press after describing the town as “poor” and “full of working class people”.

Hookem made the claim via Twitter in October, although his Twitter account has mysteriously vanished since the Grimsby Telegraph highlighted his comments this morning.

Hookem, UKIP MEP for Humber, tweeted: “By the way, Grimsby is one of the poor bits full of working class people between Cambridge and Edinburgh”.

Amongst those critical of Hookem’s comments was Grimsby’s current Labour MP, Melanie Onn, who said: “The last thing we need now is an outsider talking us down”.

Hookem has refused to apologise for his comments:

“Take a look around and see what decades of Labour rule has done to the town of Great Grimsby. As a working class lad, I was brought up to speak honestly. Grimsby is one of the poorer areas of the UK and is a prime example of how the Labour Party have failed working men and women.”

Hookem became notorious following a “handbags at dawn” altercation with former UKIP leadership candidate Steven Woolfe in Strasbourg’s European Parliament in October, although the former army commando was cleared of punching Woolfe in an internal party review.