Nigel Farage is campaigning in the US for a politician who said being gay should be illegal

Nigel Farage is campaigning in the US for a politician who has said that being gay should be banned.

The former Ukip leader hit out at ‘violent left-wing protesters’ while campaigning for controversial candidate Roy Moore, who once said ‘homosexual conduct’ should be illegal.

Mr Farage joined ousted White House strategist Steve Bannon to address crowds in Alabama on Monday night in support of Mr Moore, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.

The controversial Roy Moore is running for Senate (Picture: Rex)
The controversial Roy Moore is running for Senate (Picture: Rex)

The Brexit campaigner railed against the ‘liberal media’ as he criticised ‘violent left-wing protesters’ during his pledge of support for Mr Moore, who is running for a Republican nomination for the US Senate.

Mr Farage said: ‘There are others on the left who are turning increasingly away from democratic process and towards violent, unpleasant, nasty protest.

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‘We see some on the left who now even want to rewrite history, tear down statues and pretend we are different people to who we are.’

US president Donald Trump received criticism from across the political spectrum after he blamed ‘many sides’ for violence at a far-right-led rally over the planned removal of a statue of Confederate leader Robert E Lee.

Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car ploughed into anti-fascist counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Mr Trump took two days to criticise hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan by name for the August 12 violence.

Mr Moore’s track record includes comments in a debate on Thursday that the US’s core has been shaken while ‘abortion, sodomy, sexual perversion sweep our land’.

And in a speech claiming only God could unify public divisions, he used the historic slurs of ‘reds and yellows’, the former an outdated term for Native Americans and the latter a derogatory 19th-century term for Asian immigrants.

Nigel Farage has thrown his backing behind a controversial US candidate (Picture: PA)
Nigel Farage has thrown his backing behind a controversial US candidate (Picture: PA)

Mr Moore also said during an interview in 2005 that ‘homosexual conduct’ should be illegal.

Mr Farage told the crowds: ‘I have absolutely no hesitation in putting my support and my backing behind a man like judge Roy Moore, who has shown in his career that he will always put principle before his own career advancement.’

The former judge was twice removed as Alabama’s chief justice by an ethics panel – first for defying an order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from a judicial building and then for allegedly urging colleagues to not grant marriage licences to homosexual couples.

Mr Farage, a long-term ally of the US president, has broken with Mr Trump in backing Mr Moore. The president has campaigned for the incumbent Luther Strange, as has vice president Mike Pence.

(Main picture: Rex)