A Labour councillor, suspended after using the the N word had his comments taken out of context, it has been claimed.

Dover District Council's Labour leader Cllr Mike Eddy confirmed Cllr Peter Walker's derogatory words were made at a private party meeting about a month ago and were used "as a simile for a local issue."

The party leader said: "It's certainly under investigation by the party," and added: "From the Labour Party perspective, we would hope that this is over as quickly as possible because Peter is an extremely able councillor who has done a vast amount of good work on the council.

"A n***** in the woodpile (or fence) is a figure of speech originating in the United States meaning some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong."

It is not known which local issue Cllr Walker was describing and Cllr Eddy said releasing details at this stage would not be appropriate while the internal investigation takes place.

Cllr Eddy, who was not present at the meeting when the discussion took place, said he believes the issue "will be proven to be a storm in a tea cup."

He added: "I do know that for Peter the word which has caused particular concern is for him a word that doesn't have any unpleasant conotation whatsoever.

"It's the word which was in the title of a play 50 years ago in which his wife was acting."

The play in question was written by Agatha Christie, and was originally called Ten Little N*****s.

It was later renamed Ten Little Indians, and now it is known as And Then There Were None.

Cllr Walker, who represents Eythorne and Shepherdswell, confirmed he is under investigation by the Labour Party's National Executive and expects the probe to continue until at least November.

He said: "As such I don't want to say anything that might prejudice the case.

"Certainly what I said wasn't said with a racist intent."

News of his suspension comes amid complaints about Labour and Tory councillors for DDC.

Tory Cllr Bob Frost resigned from the Conservative Party following his suspension for making derogatory comments, most recently about Liverpool's crime fraternity and the slave trade made on Twitter. And Nathaniel Richards (Labour) was criticised for calling a man a p**ck during a twitter spat about food poverty.