Ukip chief is always ‘down the pub’, says fellow MEP

Fiona Hall MEP, leader of the Liberal Democrats’ European Parliamentary Party, accused Mr Farage of an “ugly far-right agenda” during a speech at the party conference in Glasgow yesterday.

She said the Ukip leader spent so much of his working time away from the European Parliament he was now known as “Mr Mirage”.

“Of course there are things we want to change at a European level,” she said. “We’d like to get rid of Nigel Farage for a start. Actually I think we’ve succeeded on that one already. He is so rarely seen in the European Parliament that people now call him Nigel Mirage.

“Ukip MEPs have the worst attendance records in the European Parliament. While Lib Dem MEPs are working to get the best deal for their constituents, Mr Mirage is down the pub. Talk about a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

She went on: “But there’s a very ugly far-right agenda behind that pint-and-fag bonhomie – not just wanting the UK out of the EU but also tax cuts for the rich, no aid for the world’s poor, climate change doesn’t exist, anti-gay rights, women should clean behind the fridge. So it is not surprising then that the Ukip female MEPs have left the party.”

Ms Hall also told party activists that businesses thought it would be a disaster to leave Europe.

She added: “When I visit factories, the message face-to-face is even clearer – if the UK were to leave the European Union it would be a disaster. A disaster, that is the word they use and that is the message that we, as Liberal Democrats, must take out to people on the doorstep.”

Former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy won a standing ovation from delegates with his own staunch defence of the UK’s membership of the EU.

Mr Kennedy delighted delegates in Glasgow with a tub-thumping speech, telling activists to stand tall and be the pro-Europe voice in next year’s European Parliament elections even if it made them unpopular.

“That’s our responsibility next year at these European elections - we can forget Ukip, we can forget the Tories, we can forget Labour,

“If the voice of rational pro-Europeanism is going to be heard, there is only one place it can come from, and it should be us.”

There are widespread expectations the Lib Dems face a crashing defeat next May.

But Mr Kennedy said: “This is what we should be passionate about and if it makes us unpopular in certain quarters, let’s be unpopular for what we care about and what we believe in and what defines us and what we think is best for our country.”