Ant Middleton apologises for Black Lives Matter tweet

Ant Middleton has apologised for his now-deleted tweet about the Black Lives Matter protests.

The 39-year-old former soldier - who is best-known for starring on \'SAS: Who Dares Wins\' - has issued an apology after appearing to draw a parallel between the English Defence League (EDL) and the recent anti-racism protests by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

His original tweet read: "The extreme left against the extreme right. When did two wrongs make a right. It was only a matter of time. BLM and EDL are not welcome on our streets, absolute scum. What a great example you are to your future generation. Bravo. (sic)"

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However, Ant has subsequently taken to Twitter to insist he wasn\'t comparing the EDL and the BLM protests.

He said on the micro-blogging platform: "I\'d just like to clarify a tweet I put out this weekend and deleted straight away, once I re-read and realised it could cause offence.

"I put out a tweet, retweeted a video of the violence, the terror, the chaos that was happening on the streets of London and within that tweet I mentioned the BLM and the EDL and the word \'scum\'."

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He added: "At no point was I calling the BLM scum and comparing the two organisations. I want to make that really clear."

The TV star also wrote a note alongside his video message.

Ant said: "Posting a message in relation to a tweet I took down over the weekend. I took it down immediately but I wanted to make sure I\'ve been clear and upfront about why I took it down... (sic)"