Two UKIP members are facing expulsion after they were discovered to have links with far right groups.

It follows revelations a UKIP local election candidate in Hastings said “there is no such thing as a benign Muslim” on a social media site.

St Leonards resident Kevin O’Doherty posted the comment on Facebook story he shared about a school at the centre of a takeover plot by Islamic hardliners.

The post, dated April 21, said: “There is no such thing as a benign Muslim, only a latent adherent of Koranic dogma.”

Mr O’Doherty is standing as a UKIP candidate in the Central St Leonards ward in the Hastings Borough Council elections on May 22.

When questions about the posts were put to a UKIP party spokesman yesterday, they said in a statement that an internal investigation had found two unnamed party members were found to have links to “organisations incompatible with party membership”.

The first was discovered to have been a member of the BNP from 2005 to 2010, the second was a donor to the EDL.

UKIP said it would not reveal the identities of those involved as both men still had the right of an appeal in writing.

A UKIP spokesman added: “UKIP is a non-racist, non-sectarian party and we are determined to uphold those values.

“Part of that process is maintaining vigilance against the possibility of infiltration either on an organised or individual basis by those who do not subscribe to our values.”

Mr O’Doherty has not been shy on expressing his views on controversial topics in the past.

After a UKIP candidate said Lenny Henry should “emigrate to a black country” Mr O’Doherty wrote on Facebook: “Lenny Henry is the one who raised the issue of racism by his proposition.

“The repudiation may not be pretty, but does it not have validity?

“He wants to set quotas which will do more harm than good. He is an opportunist grandstander.”

He also appeared to support UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom’s infamous “bongo bongo land” quote to describe countries receiving government aid in August 2013.

Mr O’Doherty wrote on Facebook: “I believe in freedom of speech.”

“Words only have any power because of collective emotional reaction to them.

“If everyone were permitted to say anything (surely the true meaning of free speech) then nothing could be deemed offensive.”