Channel 4 News has apologised for posting a video of Boris Johnson on Twitter with subtitles claiming he had referred to “people of colour” instead of “people of talent” during a talk about immigration.

Speaking in Derbyshire, the PM told a crowd: “I’m in favour of having people of talent come to this country but I think we should have it democratically controlled.”

Perhaps thrown by Johnson’s unusual sentence construction, Channel 4 News posted a clip, with subtitles, erroneously stating he had said the process of “people of colour” coming to the UK should be “democratically controlled”. 

The original tweet has since been deleted and the programme quickly admitted the subtitling was a “mistake”.

It added: “We misheard and we apologise.”

Conservative Party chairman James Cleverley tweeted: “Boris has used the phrase ‘people of talent’ many times during this election campaign in relation to our points based immigration policy.”

But within minutes of the original video being posted, “people of colour” was trending on Twitter and tweets expressing outrage flooded the social media site.

The apology appeared to be inadequate for Lib Dem MP Chuka Umunna, demanding of the already widely available footage: “Let people see the clip and they can decide.”

Apparently believing the broadcaster should have doubled down on its mistake instead of owning up, he added: “Have you been threatened with consequences if you do not apologise?”

Elsewhere, Johnson has unveiled a new election poster in a visit to Kent, PA Media reports.

It declares: “Get Britain out of neutral.”

The poster does not state which gear the Conservatives want to put Britain in. The gearstick has a choice of gears one to five and reverse.