UKIP hits back after ‘clowns’ jibe

Mr Farage, whose party has said it does not condone “unpalatable views”, told the programme Ukip is “the only party in British politics who does not allow former members of the BNP to even join us as a member, let alone be a candidate.

“Labour has sitting councillors who are former BNP members, the Tories have BNP members in their party, we forbid it.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson has urged Tories not to panic over Ukip’s rise in the polls, insisting it could be a good thing.

Mr Johnson said the party’s popularity suggested the Conservative approach was “broadly popular”, while Labour was “going nowhere”.

He also delivered an apparent rebuke to big beast Ken Clarke for his “ill-advised insults”.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph as campaigning intensifies ahead of the elections, Mr Johnson said Mr Farage had always struck him as a “rather engaging geezer”.

“He’s anti-pomposity, he’s anti-political correctness, he’s anti-loony Brussels regulation. He’s in favour of low tax, and sticking up for small business, and sticking up for Britain.”

He went on: “We Tories look at him - with his pint and cigar and sense of humour - and we instinctively recognise someone who is fundamentally indistinguishable from us.”

Mr Johnson - widely tipped as a successor to David Cameron - said Tories should resist the temptation to “overreact, to freak out, to denounce them all as frauds or worse”.

“I think there may have been a few ill-advised insults flying around in the past couple of days,” he wrote.

“Well, I would humbly submit that there are better ways of tackling the Ukip problem, if indeed it is really a problem at all.

“The rise of Farage and Ukip tells us some interesting and important things about what the electorate wants - and it is by no means bad news for the Conservatives.

“It tells us that the voters are fed up with over-regulation of all kinds, and especially from Brussels.

“Well, who is going to offer a referendum on the EU? Only the Conservatives - and the trouble with voting Ukip is that it is likely to produce the exact opposite: another Labour government and another five years of spineless and unexamined servitude to the EU.”

The Mayor said it was natural that voters were tempted to vote for Ukip and to give the political class a “kick in the pants”.

“Rather than bashing Ukip, I reckon Tories should be comforted by their rise - because the real story is surely that these voters are not turning to the one party that is meant to be providing the official opposition,” he said.

“The rise of Ukip confirms a) that a Tory approach is broadly popular and b) that in the middle of a parliament, after long years of recession, and with growth more or less flat, the Labour Party is going precisely nowhere.”