UKIP leader Nigel Farage appears to have got over his high-profile public confrontation in Edinburgh two weeks ago and plans to come to Scotland soon to campaign in the by-election for the Holyrood seat of Aberdeen Donside.

"My intention is to go; it's just a question of what I have to cancel to do so," he said.

Otto Inglis, an Edinburgh-based businessman, is the Ukip candidate. The SNP's Mark McDonald is favourite to win the seat where his colleague, Brian Adam, whose death sparked the by-election, took more than 55% of the vote in 2011 with a majority of 7175.

Mr Farage also intends to travel to Orkney and Shetland, where the party has a "solid branch", in August. A party spokesman said the constituency voted against membership of the EEC in the 1970s and opposed Scottish devolution in the 1999 referendum.

Earlier this month, the Ukip leader blamed "racist" and "anti-English" independence supporters for disrupting a party event in the Scottish capital.

The First Minister, Alex Salmond, responded by saying: "We can frankly do without Ukip, who dislike everybody and know absolutely nothing about Scotland."

Mr Farage described this as "an extraordinary comment", which contained "not just a bit of fear". He likened Nationalism to alcohol, saying "excess leads to deep unpleasantness".

A Ukip spokesman also described Mr Salmond as having a "messianic complex" and claimed his failure to condemn the verbal abuse of Mr Farage showed "not strength but weakness".

He said: "Why was Salmond so angry with Farage? To suggest because Nigel comes from Kent that he is not welcome in Scotland is an argument in the extreme. He is angry because Ukip turned up and is serious about Scotland. Salmond fears we speak for a significant proportion of the population."

While the anti-EU party generally polls badly in Scotland, the spokesman insisted Ukip's basic pro-UK and anti-EU message was backed by 20% of Scots, the same as or better than the level of support for the pro-UK, pro-EU Better Together campaign.