A FORMER Oxfordshire county councillor who quit her seat to try to become a Liberal Democrat MP has said she will not stand for election.

Kirsten Johnson represented Wheatley on the county council until last October but resigned to become the Lib Dems’ candidate for North Devon.

On Sunday, an awkward broadcast where Dr Johnson seemed to infer that some Leave voters were racist was broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.

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On Facebook, she wrote: “It is with the deepest regret that I resign as the Parliamentary Candidate for North Devon Liberal Democrats with immediate effect.

"I am acutely aware that my comments in the recent Radio 4 interview caused offence, and I reiterate my sincere apologies. Whilst I have had many very good interviews, on this occasion I totally lost the thread of what I was saying, which was interpreted in ways that I certainly did not intend or believe about the people of North Devon.”

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North Devon is currently held by the Conservatives’ Peter Heaton-Jones, who won the seat at general elections in 2015 and 2017.

From 1992 until 2015, the seat was held by the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Harvey.

At the EU referendum in June 2016, 57 per cent of North Devon voted to Leave the EU.