He insisted: “We do our absolute best. We vet candidates to a much higher standard than Labour or the Conservatives do at local elections. But you can’t vet for what people say in the future.”
Although he said “I’m not pleased with it,” Mr Farage did not appear particularly concerned by the controversy.
“If you spoke to hundreds of Labour or Tory councillors, gave them a glass of beer, tried to provoke them in conversation, you’d get very, very similar types of statements,” he argued.
“So I’m not pleased with it. But some of it, I mean, frankly, you know, I mean, look, there’s a snobbery here.
“There is a London, Oxford and Cambridge University snobbery.”
He went on: “Do you think working-class people, when they’re talking about the rape gangs in Rochdale or Rotherham, do you think saying they should be executed is an unusual thing?
“I don’t support it, but I promise you, that’s how many folks speak.”
Reform is also facing a Conservative Party that has recovered in recent polls, with an increasingly confident leader in Kemi Badenoch and some surveys now putting the Tories ahead of Mr Farage’s party.