The official equalities watchdog has written to Reform UK to raise concerns after an undercover TV documentary showed councillors and candidates for the party expressing racist and misogynistic views, with one of the party’s MPs complaining about ingrained sexism.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it had written to Nigel Farage’s party in the wake of revelations in ITV’s Undercover: A Year in Reform, which was broadcast in October.

While Farage has said the party’s vetting procedures have improved greatly, footage in the programme included Alan Feeney, a Reform councillor and deputy mayor of Solihull, calling Asian homeowners “parasites”, making Islamophobic remarks, and stating that “no more than 1% of [the] British population can be non-white”.

Other candidates were recorded making comments of extreme violence and sharing deeply misogynistic and racist views, including a Bromley councillor calling for King Charles to be killed and another councillor who made disturbing sexual and…