SIR Roger Scruton has been sacked as a UK Government adviser and faces a Labour call for him to be stripped of his knighthood after he sparked fresh controversy with "unacceptable" comments on Islamophobia.

Whitehall confirmed the controversial philosopher was dismissed as a housing tsar with immediate effect.

A spokeswoman for the Communities Department said: "Professor Sir Roger Scruton has been dismissed as Chairman of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission with immediate effect, following his unacceptable comments.

"A new chair will be appointed by the Secretary of State, to take this important work forward, in due course."

Downing Street said Sir Roger's comments were "deeply offensive and completely unacceptable" and that it was right that he had been dismissed.

"He was appointed because of his expertise in the built environment but his comments are clearly distracting from the work of the commission and it is no longer right for him to act as a Government adviser," a No 10 spokeswoman explained.

Last November, the Government dismissed calls to fire the academic as a housing adviser after it emerged Sir Roger had claimed Islamophobia was a "propaganda word" and described homosexuality as "not normal".

Sir Roger came under renewed criticism after commenting on the controversy.

The New Statesman America quoted the 75-year-old as repeating his claim that Islamophobia was a propaganda word "invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion of a major issue".

Sir Roger said it was "nonsense" for critics to accuse Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

"The Hungarians were extremely alarmed by the sudden invasion of huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East," he said.

Referring to philanthropist George Soros, Sir Roger noted: "Anybody who doesn't think that there's a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts."

Remarking on last November's controversy, Sir Roger said: "It's upsetting because it's meant to undermine your authority and authority is the only thing I have, authority that comes from hard work and thinking.

"What surprised me was the kind of people who repeated this. You expect people who spend their lives on Twitter to have this store of malice but when it comes up in Parliament, as it did, I was astonished."

Labour led calls for him to be sacked, with Dawn Butler, the Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, accusing him of invoking the "language of white supremacists".

Her colleague Andrew Gwynne, the Shadow Communities Secretary, said: "Labour called for Roger Scruton to be sacked from the start and the Tories should never have handed him the job given what was known about his disgusting, hateful remarks.

He called on James Brokenshire, the Housing Secretary, to back up his claim that due diligence had been applied in the appointment of Sir Roger. Mr Gwynne added: “The Government should also strip him of his knighthood."

The philosopher was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for "services to philosophy, teaching and public education".

Ben Derbyshire, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said it was right for the Government to dismiss Sir Roger and that his organisation’s doubts about the impartiality of the building commission he chaired were clearly justified.

"Time and effort have been wasted and we should now move on from stylistic obsessions to the issues that lie at the heart of solving the housing crisis. The Government must focus on the real priority here: ensuring that all communities benefit from high quality homes and well-designed neighbourhoods," added Mr Derbyshire.