"Get out now" Farage tells Inverness
The key to saving Highland Council and NHS Highland services is to leave the European Union this summer, Nigel Farage told Inverness on Wednesday (April 20).
The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader made his bold statement during a visit as part of the campaign for the upcoming Scottish Government elections.
The party, famous for dividing opinion on issues such as immigration and education, has fielded four Highlands and Islands list candidates for the vote in may, including David Coburn, MEP and leader of UKIP Scotland.
Mr Farage pointed out the financial plight of local authorities and the NHS is not unique to the Highlands but said voting to leave the EU in June’s referendum would be a ‘good start’.
“Every single council across UK is seeing money allocated to them from central government diminishing yet at the same time our national debt goes up,” he said. “There is a black hole in the Scottish budget and we have very serious problems.
“I could say glibly not giving £10 million a year to the EU would be a good start. The majority of what we spend on overseas aid probably gets wasted and doesn’t go to the right place, that would be a start. Those two things on their own would actually reduce the budget more than anything that Osborne or anyone else is proposing at the moment.”
The visit to the Highland capital passed peacefully, compared with Mr Farage’s previous visits to Scotland, which have seen him hiding in pubs from angry protestors.
“One person shouted at me in the car park but that’s alright. It will be interesting to see what the reaction is later today,” he said before taking to the streets to meet voters.
The 52-year-old believes his party’s popularity will grow in Scotland as it has elsewhere in the UK, despite Mr Coburn being the only elected UKIP member in the country.
“Do I think UKIP will get a toehold into Holyrood? Yes I really do,” he said.
“How big it will be I don’t know but my experience is that UKIP does say things that are different and says them differently as well. If we establish that toehold in Holyrood you will find that we will change the national debate in Scotland disproportionate to our size.
The evidence that support is growing.
“I think a lot of what is said about Scotland and Scottish opinion is perhaps not necessarily true.
“The ideas that Scotland loves the EU and nobody in Scotland cares about the immigration issue for example. If you look at the social attitude surveys you find the differences between Scotland and England are nowhere near as big as people try to make out.”
