First Minister showed Farage a route to the top of politics

Nigel Farage has revealed he modelled his rise to prominence on the career of SNP leader Alex Salmond.

Farage claims that when he quit the Ukip leadership in 2009 he had in mind Salmond’s decision to stand down as the head of the SNP in 2000, only to return to the post four years later.

Farage was back after just a year out of the top job.

He said: “I was burnt-out, but I’d seen what Alex Salmond had done he’d walked away and come back a few years later on his own terms so there was a bit of that thinking going on.

“I came back in 2010 saying ‘I’m not going to run the party, I’m going to lead it, do media and fund-raise’. And I’ve been pretty successful at that.”

So successful that Farage claims his party can win the European elections next year and trigger a “political earthquake”. Ukip are confident they’ll have a Scottish MEP after next May.

As a fan of the First Minister’s style, Farage was particularly unhappy when Salmond failed to condemn the Edinburgh incident that saw the Ukip leader chased into a city pub by demonstrators and escorted to safety by police.

He said: “Alex Salmond is someone I have admired in politics. Certainly in terms of ability he’s been head and shoulders above everyone else in Edinburgh for a long time. I was very disappointed by his reaction to that incident.”

On a campaigning trip to Aberdeen last month during the Donside by-election, Farage was again pursued into a pub and had a can of Coke thrown over him. He laughed: “I got into the pub and said to the landlord, ‘I’m really sorry about the mess and the

trouble I’ve brought to your pub’ .

“He replied, ‘Don’t worry mate, you want to see what it’s like in here on Saturdays’!

“But it has been tough for us in Scotland. The welcoming committees we’ve received haven’t been particularly friendly.”

Farage has his own theories on why he is met with such distaste on visits to Scotland.

He said: “The SNP are scared of us, really scared of us.

“I’ve never seen a bigger political gap in any marketplace than there is in Scotland right now. Salmond has got away with the independence in Europe line for 20 years, totally unchallenged, because the Tories, the Greens, Labour, Tommy Sheridan, the whole bloody lot in Scotland all support EU membership.

“What will destroy the Scottish independence argument is that you can’t be an independent nation and a member of the European Union. And that’s the debate that needs to be had in Scotland and we are trying to make that debate happen.”

While Salmond remains wedded to independence, Farage is trying to expand Ukip’s horizons beyond just exiting the EU.

He’s scathing about wind farms. “We will campaign on the lunacy that is wind turbine policy. We have such cretins running the country these days that we’re being warned the lights could go out.”

And he’s promised that the party’s 2015 manifesto will be more substantial than the 2010 version, which often comes back to haunt him with policies such as a flat rate of tax and abolishing the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

He added: “The 2010 manifesto was a Horlicks. I’ve burnt it, it’s a dead parrot.

“Becoming a grown-up party means having properly costed policies.”

So grown-up, he claims Ukip could hold the balance of power in 2015 after targeting all their resources at around 50 winnable seats.

He added: “Ukip can’t be brushed under the carpet any more.”