Nigel Farage returns to Scotland confident that Ukip will win a Scottish seat in the European Elections, Willie Rennie says there must be no repeat of racist hate protests and urges Alex Salmond to call off the Nationalist ‘attack dogs’, could Ukip take the third seat the SNP hopes to win?

Dear All

One of the most unfortunate things about politics is being smeared by false allegations.

This appears to be the modius operandi of the Nationalists and their supporters and associates.

Ukip is putting up a full set of candidates in Scotland: the party is being targeted as racist by certain elements.

Even the Scottish Greens have gotten into the act,

“We want a welcoming Scotland, the opposite of UKIP's racist agenda #VoteGreen2014 pic.twitter.com/MKsIGqCNgM”.

Ukip want the UK to leave the European Union, they want British people to take back control.

Patrick Harvie calls them racists.

The Scottish Greens want to leave the UK; they want Scotland’s people to take back control.

Using this as a basis, would someone consider the Scottish Greens to be racist?

Would someone consider the Scottish Greens to be an anti English party?

You see Patrick Harvie cannot have it both ways.

This is rather poor politics, it doesn’t matter who you stand against in politics, the most important thing is what you stand for, patently the Scottish Greens

Nigel Farage has previously been abused in Scotland by people connected to the Nationalists, rather than going away, he returns to Edinburgh today.

Farage says if there is a repeat of his "anti-English" treatment it would expose a streak of racist hatred in Scotland.

The question for the Ukip is the Euro Elections their breakthrough moment in Scotland, that is hard to say, by-elections results don’t show a real groundswell, however, people may consider Ukip as the place to use their vote as a protest.

In Scotland the main parties have sown up the market, two Labour, two SNP, one Tory and one Lib Dem.

But the Ukip leader has expressed confidence, so who would he push out?

Well, the target would either the Tories or the Lib Dems.

Can Farage get enough traction to do this?

Well, in political terms that would need to be in the region of a miracle, Ukip isn’t as developed on the ground, this is a problem, although having a good high profile helps, you need people to get out and connect with the voters in areas.

Polls in England give Ukip as much as 31% of the vote, in Scotland, its highest rating has been 18% in a small-sample poll.

That is helpful but another problem they face is that their candidates are pretty much unknowns to the public.

Although 6 are standing, they if lucky would get only one, but one is enough, I would suspect that their vote share would rise, but they need something more than they are currently doing in Scotland.

Last year saw anti English protests by Nationalist supporters, Farage when asked if he faced another barrage of the same said:

"I don't know what will happen. I suspect, from the perspective of the Scottish Nationalists, that's probably the worst thing that could happen, because what we saw last year in the streets were some basically anti-English [protests]. Talk about racism - that is what was being expressed, hatred."

Police Scotland says the force will "supply the appropriate police resource as required."

Farage also said:

"Mr Salmond is hoping Ukip do not nudge over the line on May 22 because he knows as soon as Ukip is there the whole Scottish debate changes, the word independence starts to mean something different in the context of the EU," he said. "It will expose the fact that you are not having an independence referendum. The whole thing is a misnomer because the package is 'say No to Westminster and Yes to Mr Van Rompuy'."

Asked on whether Ukip winning would boost the No campaign, he said:

"It would, yes. Whatever you think of Brussels and the EU set-up, you can't be an independent country and a member of the EU, period. That voice has not been heard in Scotland. I came up last year to make that point and was shouted down. Once we have someone elected, you can't stop that from being out there."

Last night Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Mr Salmond must "call off the dogs" for Mr Farage's visit.

Rennie added there must be no repeat of last year's trouble and the First Minister must "stand up for free speech".

Salmond doesn’t believe in free speech, hence we have the dreadful Fitba Act.

Will Salmond call off Nationalist attack dogs?

I think that this is a call that which will fall on deaf ears, the Nationalists are hoping to try and win 3 seats in this election, last time round they got 100k votes more than the Labour Party.

That was in 2009, a lot has happened since then, the SNP have shown they are irrelevant in Europe, they have done nothing of note, and their candidates in this election are quite frankly weak. Their lead candidate has been outed as employing his wife, the SNP is run as a self serving clique; their President aptly shows how that is done.

A vote for the Scottish National Party is a wasted vote.

Nigel Farage will pick up votes, if he gets one of his people in it will certainly ruffle a few feathers, could he stop the SNP getting their ex Labour and ex Tory candidate, Tasmina ahmed-sheikh a place, who knows.

I was teamed up with her once, she told me she hadn’t done any activism in 5 years, hardly dedicated to the cause, but stick the chance of an MEP salary under her nose and this English woman is now die hard Nationalist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1343298/Defector-to-SNP-is-political-butterfly.html

Not so die hard previously.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University