Tory London Mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has claimed Britain's Black community lacks the Jewish community's "confidence and self belief", suggesting this explained Jews' success in "business".

At a JW3 event on Wednesday, Mr Bailey said he came "from a community that has suffered quite heavily financially," adding: "And I believe it is because of its dependency on the state.”

Mr Bailey said he became a Conservative “because I believe in wealth creation in society” and said that “for my community not to be dependent” they needed to embrace the values of “freedom and family and work.”

A former youth adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, Mr Bailey then suggested the Jewish community had escaped similar issues of “dependency” through their success in “business”.

He said: "If I look at the Jewish community – it’s why I made a comment about business people.

"What business people signify in a community is confidence and self belief. We don’t, to my mind, have the same thing in the Black community.

“I want to be part of continuing developing that confidence, that achieving attitude because that makes your places safe, it makes your children prosperous. It makes the whole country work. And that’s why I became a Conservative.”

But earlier in his talk, he said: "My impression of the Jewish community has been largely shaped by the friends I have in it who are progressive, go ahead, fine people.”

He added: "To me you are just a set of people, the same as any community in London.

"You are just worried about where you are going to work… what are your children going to be doing in the future, can you afford somewhere to live.

“There’s very few issues the Jewish community faces, that any other community has. But you do have two or three special issues. One was certainly antisemitism, the rise of antisemitism has been shocking...

"Hopefully being part of challenging that is very important to me.”

Mr Bailey, 49, who declared himself a devoted Christian, said: "One of the features of the Black community which are mirrored in the Jewish community is we volunteer.

"Volunteering is normal to us. When you grow up you don’t even realise you are volunteering.”

Mr Bailey was speaking at JW3's first of the mayoral campaign breakfast events, organised by the London Jewish Forum, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies.

Also aiming to topple Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan on May 7 are Siobhan Benita for the Liberal Democrats, Sian Berry for the Green Party and Rory Stewart, Count Binface and Drillminister as Independents.