A Reform UK candidate for the Welsh Senedd elections in May has announced he is standing down because of his mental health, after a photograph emerged of him apparently making a Nazi salute as an imitation of Adolf Hitler.

The announcement by Reform comes a day after Nigel Farage defended Corey Edwards, its lead candidate for the Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg constituency, saying he may have instead been impersonating the John Cleese character Basil Fawlty.

Reform has also experienced problems with candidate selection in Scotland, where four of its picks for elections there in May stood down or were suspended within a week of being announced by Farage.

The photograph of Edwards, an ex-adviser to the Conservative former Welsh secretary David TC Davies, was published by the Nation.Cymru website and showed him raising his right arm, with a finger of his left hand under his nose.

A Reform UK Wales spokesperson said: “Corey Edwards has informed us that he is stepping down as a candidate for the Senedd election this May, citing issues with his mental health.

“We wish him well for the future and hope his privacy can be respected at this difficult time.”

In one episode of Fawlty Towers, the 1970s BBC sitcom, the eponymous hotelier played by Cleese goose-steps in front of some German visitors with a finger under his nose. In a TV interview on Thursday, Farage defended Edwards, saying: “It was a Fawlty Towers impression. Maybe we should ban the BBC, I don’t know.” He added: “I get the point – it looks terrible. Things in isolation often do. I wouldn’t approve of it.”

Asked if Edwards would be suspended, Farage said: “No, he’s a human being.”

Edwards said in an initial statement on Thursday that while he recognised he had made a mistake, he had been imitating the Welsh goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, who was pictured making a similar gesture in 2019. Hennessey said he did not know what a Nazi salute was.

Another confirmed Reform candidate in Wales for the 7 May elections is Laura Anne Jones, who is the party’s sole Senedd member. Last November she was suspended from the parliament for two weeks after she used an offensive Chinese slur in an office WhatsApp group.

A week ago, Reform UK suspended one of its Scottish candidates, Stuart Niven, its candidate for Dundee City West, after it emerged he had been struck off as a company director.

Three other Scottish candidates have shared offensive, far-right or false information on social media, including one who called Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first Muslim leader, “not British”, and one who endorsed social media posts by Tommy Robinson and Britain First.