A Conservative councillor has resigned after calls to remove an article from his website entitled "there's nothing wrong with racism".

Councillor Geoffrey Sampson from Wealdon Council, who is also a professor at Sussex University, stood by his opinions on Monday even if it meant expulsion from the Tories.

"I am a professional academic, it's not part of the academic profession to believe things are true but to refrain from saying them because they are rather awkward," he told the BBC Today Programme.

"It is our job to draw awkward truths to society's attention to help society improve on a basis of sensible, true understanding of that world."

He disagreed that his views were controversial, and denied that he had ever said he was proud of calling himself a racialist.

Europe minister, Peter Hain, led calls for Iain Duncan Smith to expel him from the party. "I think Iain Duncan Smith should expel him from the party, and anybody like him, because there are many in the Conservative ranks who clearly are racists and proud to be so," he told the BBC Breakfast with Frost programme.

However, a spokesman for the party claimed that Hain's comments had more to do with the ongoing row concerning a donation to the Labour Party by Express newspapers owner Richard Desmond.

"Whenever Labour is in trouble they play the race card," he argued.

But the spokesman added that the case of Councillor Sampson was being examined.