First Minister Alex Salmond has been urged to “call off the dogs” who have declared they plan to heckle Nigel Farage in Edinburgh today.
Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie spoke out after members of the Radical Independence Campaign said they were prepared to protest outside the Corn Exchange where the Ukip leader is expected to hold a European election rally.
The MSP said he was horrified that the Ukip leader was “chased out” of the city nearly a year ago by a group of left-wing pro-independence protestors.
Mr Farage was forced to lock himself in a pub close to the Scottish Parliament and was eventually driven away in a police van after two failed attempts to leave in a taxi.
A few weeks later Mr Farage was confronted by an angry group of protesters outside the Staging Post pub in Bucksburn, Aberdeen, while campaigning in the Donside by-election.
Mr Rennie said last night: “Alex Salmond needs to call off the dogs ahead of Nigel Farage’s visit to Edinburgh.
“Last year I was horrified to hear that the Ukip leader has been chased out of Edinburgh by aggressive independence supporters.
“I disagree fundamentally with Nigel Farage’s opinion on many things but his unpleasant and dishonest agenda will be defeated by argument, not aggression.
“Last year we saw self-proclaimed anti-racist campaigners tell an Englishman to get back to his own country.
“Anti-racists turned racist but were too ignorant to notice.”
Opinion polls have suggested that Ukip could secure more votes in the European Parliament election on May 22 than the Liberal Democrats. Aberdeen University professor of politics Michael Keating has predicted that Ukip could take advantage of “fragmented” support for the Lib Dems and Green Party to take one of the six seats.
Last night North-east SNP MSP Christian Allard said: “Nigel Farage, of course, has every right to free speech and the first minister has never suggested otherwise.
“Fortunately the more that the people of Scotland hear of him and his party, the less they like their message.
“Ukip are a virtual irrelevance in Scottish politics but they are on the same side as Willie Rennie and the Lib Dems in the referendum debate on Scotland’s future.”