A Labour Party branch has been forced to apologise after appearing to brand migrant hotel protests as Neanderthals.

The Kingswinford and South Staffordshire Labour Party posted a picture to social media showing a number of human skulls with captions written underneath, such as “man”, “woman”, “gay”, “straight”, “poor” and “ugly”.

The last skull in the image showed what appeared to be a Neanderthal skull with the caption “paints roundabouts, shouts at hotels”.

The post has since been removed from the group’s Facebook page.

Former Conservative MP Marco Longhi, who defected to Reform earlier this year, said Labour should “spend less time insulting voters” and instead spend “more time listening to why so many are turning away from them”.

According to BirminghamLive, the ex-Dudley North MP said: “This kind of post says everything about today’s Labour Party: sneering, divisive and contemptuous towards ordinary people who dare to protest or think differently.”

The Labour group confirmed it had removed the post and apologised for “any offence caused”.

Anil Singh, who chairs the branch, said it had been posted “without our authority”.

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