Farage claims Cameron’s Tory party is ‘finished’ in the North

With his party riding high in the polls ahead of next month’s county council elections, the UKIP leader told the Yorkshire Post that criticism of the current Conservative leadership as ‘posh boys who don’t know the price of milk’ rings “absolutely true” for people in the North.

Recent polls have put the anti-Europe party well ahead of the Liberal Democrats on their nationwide share of the vote, with regional breakdowns suggesting they are more popular in certain parts of the North than anywhere else in England.

Speaking at a lunch for political journalists in Westminster, Mr Farage said people no longer think of UKIP as a ‘wasted vote’, and drew parallels for the Conservatives of their collapse in Scotland over the past half-century.

“In 1955, the Tory party was the biggest party in Scotland,” he said.

“They got more votes in the ‘55 general election than any other party – and now they’ve virtually disappeared.

“I think the Conservative Party is completely disappearing in the north of England.”

On May 2 elections will be held in rural county councils across England, including in North Yorkshire – precisely the sort of Tory heartland which UKIP is now targeting.

But Mr Farage insisted his party is encroaching in urban areas as well.

“In the local elections last year, which was the big metropolitan boroughs, UKIP got more votes than the Tory party in Sheffield and Manchester,” he said.

“The Tory party is literally disappearing in the urban North. UKIP is becoming the opposition party in the north of England.

“It’s a nonsense that all our voters are Tory.

“People forget we came first in Hull in the European election of 2009, we got 22 per cent of the vote in Rotherham, we came second in the Barnsley by-election, we came second in the Middlesbrough by-election, we will undoubtedly come second in the (forthcoming) South Shields by-election.”

Mr Farage was typically combative on the subject of Europe, describing the European Union as a “bad marriage” from which Britain must seek a divorce.

But he was less sure-footed when questioned on the detail of his party’s other policies, and did not know how many seats they will be contesting in next month’s local elections in North Yorkshire.

He was forced to accept that some of the statements in his party’s own election manifesto – such as sweeping cuts to council tax - were “aspirations” rather than actual pledges, and admitted the UKIP policy of cutting top rates of tax is “incomplete” and “needs more work”.

Mr Farage, a former Tory party member, was glowing in his tributes to Lady Thatcher following her death earlier this month.

Yesterday he attempted to claim her legacy for his own upstart party, insisting that a young Margaret Thatcher would now join UKIP rather than the modern-day Conservatives.

“What is absolutely clear is that Margaret Thatcher from the mid-1990s thought this country should leave the European Union,” Mr Farage said.

‘And I cannot believe that a young Margaret Thatcher leaving Oxford today would join the Conservative party led by John Major.

‘I think she’d come and get involved in UKIP - and no doubt topple me within 12 months or so.”

Pointed out to Mr Farage that the leader of the Tories is actually David Cameron, rather than John Major, he joked: “What’s the difference? I can’t spot one.”