Reform UK has dropped three of its candidates following a row over offensive comments – including Barnsley North’s Robert Lomas.

Voters in the constituency will no longer have the option to vote for a Reform candidate in the general election on Thursday.

Instead, Mr Lomas will stand as an Independent MP, the Local Democracy Reporting Service understands.

He will still appear on the ballot paper as a Reform candidate as it is too late for him to be removed – and it is too late for the party to find a replacement.

Nigel Farage, Reform’s party leader, disowned the candidates during an appearance on BBC Question Time on Friday after Mr Loamas reportedly said black people should “get off [their] lazy arses” and stop acting “like savages”.

The comments were reported by the Times on June 8, with Reform at the time claiming they were “out of context part quotations”.

Mr Farage told Question Time that he wants “ nothing to do with them,” during Friday’s programme.

He went on to ‘encourage’ those in constituencies where candidates had been dropped to “vote for the party, by voting for these people on the ballot paper".

Reform has faced questions over its candidates nationally in the general election campaign, after numerous examples of offensive social media posts emerged.

All the main parties have had to drop potential parliamentary candidates over inappropriate comments, and Reform has blamed a company it hired to conduct background checks on would-be candidates,.

Other candidates standing in Barnsley North are: Dan Jarvis, Labour; Penny Baker, Liberal Democrats; Tony Devoy, Yorkshire Party; Neil Fisher, Independent; Tom Heyes, Green Party; and Tamas Kovacs, Conservative.