The Liberal Democrats in the UK are being sued for religious discrimination after allegedly rejecting a candidate because of his Catholic views.

Robert Flello, who was the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South until losing the seat in the 2017 election, defected to the Lib Dems last month after disagreeing with the hard-Left politics of Jeremy Corbyn.

On November 9, he was selected to stand in Thursday’s general election for the Lib Dems in the same seat. But just days later he was told by party officials that his views on abortion and same sex marriage were “not those that would be expected of a liberal” and it was therefore “not appropriate” for him to represent them. He is now suing them in court.