A leading member of Britain's opposition Conservatives has said racism was endemic in his party and more must be done to stamp it out.
Andrew Lansley, a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet and a supporter of former finance minister Ken Clarke's bid to become the next leader, said his party must increase the number of its members of parliament (MPs) from ethnic minority backgrounds.
"There is endemic racism in the Tory party", Lansley told Saturday's Telegraph newspaper. "It is in the system. I know a number of prospective candidates who, if they were not from ethnic minorities, would have been selected in safe seats and would be Conservative MPs today", he said.
Lansley's comments come in the midst of an increasingly bitter battle for the leadership of the Conservative party between Clarke and his right-wing eurosceptic challenger Iain Duncan Smith.
Duncan Smith was embarrassed last week when he was forced to sack a campaign manager linked to the far-right British National Party (BNP).
Aides to Duncan Smith said he had dismissed Edgar Griffin and was seeking his expulsion from the Conservative Party.
Griffin's son Nick is the leader of the BNP, a party of pro-white activists condemned by critics as barely-disguised Nazis.