A COUNCILLOR has refused to stand with Ukip members at the council’s service to remember the fallen, accusing them of being Neo Nazi sympathisers.

Martin Terry, Independent councillor for Thorpe ward, used a council meeting to denounce Ukip councillors, saying the party’s affiliation with the Alternative for Deutschland MEP Beatrice Von Storch, the granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister Lutz von Krosigk, was a contradiction of the values of the council’s Holocaust working party.

The controversial MEP caused uproar when she called for illegal immigrants to be shot. She joined Ukip’s parliamentary group in the European Parliament in April.

Addressing council leader John Lamb at the meeting, Mr Terry said: “I politely remind the leader that the purpose of the Holocaust Memorial working party is to remind us all that we never ever allow this type of thinking or associations in our midst, we must never turn a blind eye,

“I am calling you out, I am asking you what are you going to do about the link you have by working with a party that is prepared to allow and work with Neo Nazi politicians? What will you, as an honourable person, do about this?”

Mr Lamb replied: “I will just say a couple of words because I don’t think that question warrants a reply. I think it is absolutely disgraceful when he with his own party worked with three people from Ukip when they were in administration. Until they changed their actual party to Southend independency group, they were elected Ukip and you chose to work with them. I’m not going to say anything about individuals. I’m sure a number of individuals here would feel exactly the same about this and do not hold those values.

“ We certainly do not hold those values but we are working in an administration where we have people who work with us as they did with you and therefore you, councillor Terry, should look to the skeletons in your own closet.”

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Terry said he would not take part in the council’s memorial service on November 11 if Ukip members were present. He said: “I refuse to interact with Ukip until they renounce their affiliation with Alternative for Deutschland.

“For the first time in 14 years I will refuse to stand with the council delegation on memorial day unless the Ukip group breaks their affiliation with Neo Nazis.”

Floyd Waterworth, Southend’s Ukip group leader, said: “Of course we will be attending on November 11. My father and grandfather didn’t fight wars to stifle debate and allow jumped-up local councillors to dictate to us. I have no knowledge of Hitler’s minister’s granddaughter. Nor, I suspect, does councillor Terry. I think he has spent too much time on Wikipedia.”