Rupert Lowe made the comment on US podcast the Joe Rogan Experience, while criticising the UK's tough gun laws.

He said Britain's ban on handguns came after "there was a murder in Dunblane".

Flowers at the scene of the massacre in Dunblane (Image: PA)

Rogan clarified with Lowe that the ban was due to "one murder" and the Restore UK leader repeated that was the case.

The remark has prompted fury in Scotland with politicians describing it as "astonishingly insensitive" and "profoundly disrespectful" to the 16 children and their teacher who were murdered by gunman Thomas Hamilton in 1996.

Another 15 children and three adults were injured before Hamilton killed himself.

The commemoration stone for the Dunblane Massace (Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

But a spokesman for Mr Lowe's Restore Britain party claimed it was obvious that the Great Yarmouth MP had been referring collectively to the killings.

The spokesman said: “Rupert was clearly referring to one incident.”

Mr Lowe was appearing on the podcast -  one of the biggest in the world - during a tour of the US.

He said: “As you probably know, they banned handguns in the late ’90s........

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