A UKIP candidate in York has become embroiled in an email spat with a constituent, which is being widely shared across social media.

Ken Guest is standing for election in York Central, but when museum worker Sam Carter wrote to him, questioning the party's policies and criticising its claims on immigration, Mr Guest hit back with what Mr Carter has called rude and personally insulting emails.

The exchange has been liked and shared hundreds of times on Facebook.

In the email, Mr Guest said: "Since you clearly support the concept of the EU then you cannot claim to be in favour of democracy and hence I have to assume that you either favour anarchy, dictatorship or communism all of which have proved to have disastrous consequences for mankind in the past. But maybe you know better."

Although Mr Carter's own email was strongly worded and criticised Ukip policy - which he called xenophobic - he said he never stooped to attacking Mr Guest personally.

--- Read the email exchange - [PDF format] ---

In his email, he had referred to his dog trying to eat the leaflet and said many other Ukip leaflets had contained errors, and also questioned some of Mr Guest's grammar.

He also wrote: "You claim immigration is "uncontrolled". This is a lie because there are controls in place with our immigration system. You could say it is inadequately controlled, but since there are controls, you cannot claim ‘uncontrolled’.”

He later added: “Finally I approach the significant flaw in your plan. These plans your party made requires you to leave the EU. Looking at a recent Yougov poll, 45 per cent of people would vote to stay in the EU, 35 per cent would leave and 17 per cent are undecided (leaving 3 per cent not voting).

"In order to win this, you would require 14 per cent of the undecided voters to be convinced by your arguments. This seems like a long shot and may fail. If so, you would be unable to deliver on your election promises.”

Mr Carter, who lives in Acomb with his wife Debby, said: "I would have certainly expected him to reply and to deal with the points that I made, or to even to ignore it, but an attack on myself is worrying.

"I can deal with it because I don't find it offensive, but it's not something you'd want to see from someone who wants to be an MP."

As Debby is from Belgium and came to the UK as a shopworker, Mr Carter said he wanted to point out that although his wife came to the UK as an unskilled worker she has paid taxes and contributed for many years since her arrival.

But retired oil executive Mr Guest, who lives in Elvington, said his response simply took the same "cryptic" tone as the museum's workers own email.

"It wasn't meant to be insulting, and I apologise if he feels it was. I think he's making a mountain out of a molehill."

Ukip’s regional chairman Judith Morris the accusations were no more than the party had come to expect.

“Whilst it is unfortunate that it appears Ken’s reply is not properly worded, it was in response to a very vitriolic and accusatory letter.

"It accuses the party and our policies of being racist and homophobic, which is not what we are about but it's what we have come to expect from the Westminster elite."