As Rishi Sunak expressed his grief and rage at a slur shouted at him, police are "assessing" racist and homophobic remarks made by Reform UK campaigners.

The prime minister added that party leader Nigel Farage "has some questions to answer" and that a racist remark directed at him by a Reform UK canvasser "hurts and it makes me angry."

The leader of the Reform UK Party claimed that "it didn't ring true" during the BBC's Question Time special, pointing out that the individual in question was an actor who had been acting for the cameras.

He described the movie as "a political set-up of astonishing proportions" and stated, "This is a total and utter set-up that has been leapt on of course by our political opponents."

Campaigners for Mr Farage’s party were recorded making racist comments, including about the Prime Minister who is of Indian descent.

Mr Sunak on Friday said: “My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign to Nigel Farage calling me an effing p***. It hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer.

    As a father of two young girls, it’s my duty to call out this corrosive and divisive behaviour

Rishi Sunak

“And I don’t repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately, because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is.”

Speaking on a campaign visit to a school in Teesside, he continued: “And as Prime Minister, but more importantly as a father of two young girls, it’s my duty to call out this corrosive and divisive behaviour.”

The footage, made by an undercover Channel 4 reporter, showed the Reform campaigner suggesting migrants should be used as “target practice”.

Another canvasser described the Pride flag as “degenerate” and suggesting members of the LGBT community are paedophiles.

Essex Police said they were “urgently assessing” racist and homophobic comments made by Reform campaigners in broadcast footage “to establish if there are any criminal offences”.

A spokesman for the force said: “We are aware of comments made during a Channel 4 News programme and we are urgently assessing them to establish if there are any criminal offences.”

Mr Farage has sought to distance himself from the comments, saying he was “dismayed” by the “appalling sentiments” expressed.

Speaking on the BBC’s Question Time special, the Reform UK Party leader said “it didn’t ring true” and the man involved worked as an actor and had been playing a part for the cameras.

He said: “This is a total and utter set-up that has been leapt on of course by our political opponents”, adding the film was “a political set-up of astonishing proportions”.

Channel 4 says it stands by its journalism and that its staff did not know or pay the man involved.

Pressed about other candidates selected by his party, Mr Farage said he had inherited “a start-up party” and they had not been properly vetted before he took charge.

Earlier in the day, appearing on ITV’s Loose Women he said: “They had watched England play football, they were in the pub, they were drunk.

“People when they are drunk often turn quite nasty.”

Asked to describe their language, he said it had been “vulgar, drunken and wrong”.

Asked whether he would take action against them, he said: “They’re gone.”

Mr Farage suggested people who espoused racist or homophobic views had been attracted to Reform UK because the BNP no longer existed.

Asked why such people supported his party, he said: “Ironically, I think because we destroyed the BNP, they haven’t got the BNP to go to any more.”

He added that there were “right across the political spectrum people saying things they jolly well shouldn’t say”, and that “far-left extremists go to the Labour Party”.