A PARLIAMENTARY candidate said she felt intimidated and offended by a letter from a Labour MP questioning Ukip's links to a controversial Polish politician accused of Holocaust denial and misogyny.

Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham wrote to the constituency's Ukip candidate Mandy Boylett after it emerged that a member of the Polish Congress of the New Right Party (KNP) had joined the Ukip-led Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group within the European Parliament.

Robert Iwaszkiewicz's decision to join the EFDD group means it has members from enough countries to increase its funding and presence in the parliament.

Mr Iwaszkiewicz caused controversy in Poland after saying that men hitting their wives can "help them come back down to earth". He later claimed he was being sarcastic.

However, Mr Cunningham's letter focussed on the KNP's leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who the MP said once called for the vote to be taken away from women, said the difference between rape and consensual sex was "very subtle" and that Adolf Hitler was "probably not aware that Jews were being exterminated".

In the letter, Mr Cunningham said to his rival: "I am writing to ask whether you support your party’s new alliance with a party led by a man with despicable views, including questioning the Holocaust."

He added: "Janusz Korwin-Mikke, declared last July that the minimum wage should be “destroyed” and said that “four million n*****s” lost their jobs in the US as a result of President John F Kennedy signing a bill on the minimum wage in 1961."

But Mrs Boylett said the MP's letter insinuates he plans to smear her campaign with accusations of supporting anti-semitic and extreme views.

Mrs Boylett said she was a Jewish mother-of-two whose own father was a German refugee fleeing the Holocaust during the Second World War.,

She added that it was "totally untrue" that Ukip had joined forces with the Polish Congress of the New Right Party in the European Union.

The candidate said: “I felt so intimidated and so personally offended by his letter.

"The fact that the Labour Party are using a borderline blackmail smear attempt to threaten another candidate shows just what depths these people are willing to stoop to."

In response to the criticism, Mr Cunningham said that rather than issue a condemnation of her party, Mr Boylett had chosen to misrepresent his letter.

He added: "I accuse Ms Boylett of nothing, but the people of Stockton deserve to hear whether she will condemn her party’s alliance with the people who expressed such extreme views.”