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Wolverhampton's Beverley Knight target of racist tweet following UKIP comment

Beverley Knight was the target of a vile racist tweet after she had commented on a TV documentary exposing racism at UKIP headquarters.

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The singer-turned-theatre-star took to Twitter to comment on BBC2's fly-on-the-wall documentary Meet the Ukippers.

The show, which aired on Sunday night, featured disgraced former UKIP councillor Rozanne Duncan making a series of absurd racist remarks.

After the programme 41-year-old Knight tweeted: "Oh Rozanne – You really are deluded aren't you? As well as thoroughly bigoted of course. Awful. #MeetTheUkippers" But her comment garnered a hateful response from Twitter user White Pride, who launched a sickening attack urging the Wolverhampton-born star to 'go back to Africa if you don't like it'.

The tweet was sent using an account that had been set up 24 hours earlier.

Knight responded with another tweet saying: "The morning after the night before...One of the 'delightful' responses to my #MeetTheUkippers Rozanne Duncan tweet –"

Former Ukip councillor Duncan was axed from the party last year after segments from the show were leaked to the media. During one clip, the former councillor for Thanet South in Kent, said: "There's no way I could be described as racist. But the one people I do have a problem with is negroes. I don't know whether it's something in my psyche, or karma from another life– but I do have a real problem with people of negroid features." Duncan has since said she does not regret making the comments.

Knight has stood up against racism on numerous occasions in the past. Last year she spoke of her 'longing' for the day when skin colour was no longer an issue, prior to performing at a concert to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence.

Before the show at London's 02 Arena, Knight said: "Britain is changing so rapidly. I'm hoping we'll get to a position where we don't see what divides or separates us so much as what unites us.

"There'll come a point where people won't assume someone of non-white skin who's articulate will have had special measures to achieve that. They can just be accepted as a bright young man or woman."

She is currently starring in the acclaimed West End production Memphis the Musical, which addresses issues of racism in 1950s Tennessee at the height of racial segregation in the United States.

Earlier this year her fellow West Midlander Stan Collymore closed his Twitter account after a row over racist abuse.

The former Aston Villa star asked Staffordshire police to investigate what he termed 'horrific' racist tweets.

Many fans and supporters of Beverley Knight took to Twitter in her support

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