THE election of the "deeply unpleasant" Paul Nuttall as the leader of UKIP shows that the anti-immigration party has given up on winning support in Scotland, the SNP has claimed.
Nuttall was elected to succeed Nigel Farage who stepped down as interim leader after Diane James UKIP's first female leader lasted only 18 days in the job.
However, Nuttall has come under sustained criticism for his right wings views on issues such as the health service. In one statement he welcomed David Cameron's "whiff of privatisation" in the NHS, adding: "The very existence of the NHS stifles competition".
The new UKIP leader came under fresh fire from the SNP last night for his remarks on the NHS, as well as for comments the North West England MEP made about Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond.
In a Question Time appearance last year, Nuttall said: “I’m going to say it, and I’m guessing it’s what most people in England are saying - I’m absolutely sick to death of Salmond, Sturgeon and the SNP.”
He said they only know how to “take”, repeating the word seven times to make the point.
Clearly addressing English voters about Scots, he added: “We never get anything back. You know what they’re taking? They’re taking your tax."
The SNP said UKIP's election of Nuttall showed the party had given up trying to add to its sole elected parliamentarian in Scotland, the MEP David Coburn.
An SNP source said: “It’s clear that UKIP have now once and for all given up on ever making inroads into Scotland with the election of a leader so wildly out of step with public opinion.
“This is the deeply unpleasant character who called on the NHS to be privatised and for the First Minister to be thrown in front of a horse — the sort of rhetoric that simply has no place in Scottish politics.
“We offer our commiserations to David Coburn who sees his leadership ambitions thwarted — but with Ruth Davidson’s ragtag bunch of Tories at Holyrood veering ever further to the right and morphing into UKIP, it’s not really clear what purpose he now serves."
However, Coburn, in response, said Nuttall "wants fair shares for all parts of the UK" and would "go down very well" with Scottish voters.
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