Karma? UKIP candidate says Islam 'cancer', before election wipeout

A parliamentary candidate for Britain's far-right party UKIP said that Islam is a "growing cancer" ahead of local elections on Friday that saw the Brexiteers decimated.

Caroline Santos, who is standing for a seat in Scotland's Rutherglen and Hamilton West, made the remarks this week on Twitter in response to a boastful tweet by the founder of the Islamophobic English Defence League.

"The state made him an enemy-now look what's happened! When will the state learn to listen to people affected by the growing cancer Islam?" Santos tweeted.

Defending her comments, she told The Independent that she was referring to "extremists" not the Islamic faith as a whole.

"It was a turn of phrase, I'm not referring to a quarter of the world's population any more than I meant the word 'cancer' to be taken literally," she argued.

This would not be the first time a UKIP parliamentary hopeful has made disparaging remarks about Islam.

The party's candidate standing in Lewisham East in south London last year described the religion as "evil" on Twitter.

Last month, UKIP unveiled its so-called integration agenda for the Brexit-dominated snap general election next month.

It included a series of policies that mainly focused on Muslims, including imposing vaginal examinations for Muslim school girls and banning the burqa.

Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives secured big wins on Friday in local elections.

Final results showed the centre-right party gaining ground across the country, with the main opposition Labour party taking a hammering and UKIP all but wiped out as the Conservatives gobbled up their vote.

The Brexit cheerleaders won only one new seat, and lost all 114 they were defending.

A study last year revealed that Muslim made up the largest group of victims of hate crimes that followed Britain's decision to leave the European Union.