The Barnett formula should be scrapped to help balance the UK's books, Ukip has said.

The move could slash as much as £8billion from the Budgets of Scotland and Wales the party faithful was told at their Spring conference in Margate.

The demand came as Nigel Farage's party signalled that it would back the Conservatives plans for billions of pounds worth of spending cuts in government after May's General Election.

In return, the party said that reform was needed of the decades-old calculation that gives Scotland more public spending per head than England.

The Tory chairman Grant Shapps has ruled out a Tory deal with Ukip if there is a hung parliament in May, but that pledge has yet to be made by David Cameron.

Ukip has always said it would demand an In/Out referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union as the price for propping up a minority government in Downing Street.

But as the General Election approaches it has started to set out other potential demands it could make.

Whitehall's continued use of the Barnett formula, which allocates the highest amount of spending per person to Northern Ireland, was guaranteed in 'The Vow', backed by all the main pro-Union parties on the eve of the Scottish independence referendum last September.

Paul Nuttall, Ukip's deputy leader, called for it to be scrapped in his keynote speech to conference.

He also said that Ukip could speak on the issue of the Union "with an authority that other parties can't - we are the only party with representatives in all four parts of the union".

He condemned Holyrood and Westminster's handling of the referendum campaign and its aftermath and claimed the vow was made at a time of "electoral panic".

Along with abolishing Barnett he said that Ukip would demand Scottish MPs be stripped of the right to vote on so-called 'English-only' issues.

He hit out at the SNP saying the party's U-turn to vote on issues like changes to the English NHS, which the nationalists argue has knock-on effects for Scotland, was "wrong, it is unfair and it punishes the English".

He said that the nationalists were "like a child that has been given an inch but still wants a mile".

And he received a large round of applause from the hall when he told English MPs who, he said, did not support 'true' English votes for English laws' to "go away, and step aside and leave it to somebody who does".

The party's star turn Mr Farage arrived late in the day having flown in to the faded English seaside resort following an ill-fated trip to the U.S.

Reports overnight suggested that only a small group of people showed up to hear him speak at a high-profile Republican-organised conference in the US.

There was good news to greet his arrival in Margate as a new poll put the Ukip leader 11 percentage points ahead of nearest rivals Labour in the Westminster seat he is contesting in May, South Thanet.

In recent weeks national polls have suggested that voters could be peeling away from Mr Farage's party, following a series of controversies and allegations of racism.

The Ukip leader hit out at his political opponents, accusing them of spreading rumours that his low-profile in the election campaign so far had been due to serious illness.

He told delegates, most of whom were candidates standing in May, that reports of his "demise have been much exaggerated".

David Cameron has pledged to protect the Barnett formula.

But the Conservative leader also believes that the amount of money allocated to Scotland by Whitehall will become less important as Holyrood raises more and more of the money it spends.