THE man chosen to fight the Chester parliamentary seat for the Conservatives has resigned and accused former colleagues of sexist bullying and making racist comments.

Paul Offer was chosen three years ago to stand against the city’s incumbent Labour MP but has now said he hopes voters in Chester "will question whether the Conser- vatives are fit to run the city" ahead of next year’s council elections.

At the last election he reduced the Labour MP Christine Russell’s majority to just 915, compared with 10,553 in 1997, but recent dissent within the party in Chester has led to a very public falling out which culminated yesterday in Mr Offer’s resignation.

In a statement confirming his resignation on his blog Mr Offer said: "It saddens me to see that the local Conservative Association has self-destructed and undone so much of the good work that has been achieved during the last three years."

He said he "will take considerable credit for turning Chester from what Labour regarded as a safe seat, into one of the most marginal parliamentary seats in the country".

Mr Offer had already had run-ins with local Conservative councillors who had criticised him, but he had the backing of the regional office of the party who wanted to avoid the prospect of an embarrassing de-selection process.

Last week he attended a crunch meeting with Chester Conservative Association officers and regional representatives to discuss his future.

Mr Offer said: "The conclusion from that meeting was that there was no case against me with regards to de-selection. It was agreed that all parties had made mistakes, so we would regroup and focus on winning elections as one team."

But he says some members of the local party "appeared determined to force me out" and when the attacks turned on to his wife and there were even to attempts to contact his ex-wife of 15 years ago to "dig up some dirt" he decided to quit.

He said: "Most of Chester’s Conservative councillors are decent, honourable people who are there for the right reasons, but some are more interested in the power than they are the city or its residents."

Neville Johnson, chairman of the Conservatives’ Cheshire and Wirral area management executive, said: "This is very disappointing decision by Paul after many years of hard work by him to turn around our fortunes in that constituency.

"We shall be working closely with colleagues in the City of Chester Association to ensure that the issues raised by Paul are explored."