UKIP'S hopes of overshadowing the Conservative party conference came to a shuddering halt when the party became embroiled in another race row.

It broke out after the revelation that the party's chief spin doctor had described a journalist as being of "some form of ethnic extraction" in a text message.

The message had been meant for a party colleague but was accidentally sent to the wrong person.

Ukip spokesman Gawain Towler insisted that his comment was merely a factual description of a woman whose name he could not remember.

The row comes only weeks after the party's then MEP Godfrey Bloom referred to people living in "bongo-bongo land".

The latest controversy emerged as Ukip leader Nigel Farage received a hero's welcome at a fringe event just outside the main conference venue.

Hundreds of people packed into a room at Manchester Town Hall to hear Mr Farage say he would not enter an electoral pact with the Tories at the next election, but would sanction local "deals".

The Conservatives fear Ukip could deny them marginal seats and remove any chance they have of winning a majority at the next General Election. There will be no mention of Ukip from the conference stage in a policy, to try to starve the party of publicity.

But that appeared to have failed spectacularly as Mr Farage entered the hall to cheers and whoops and shouts of "come on Nigel" despite the fact that the event, organised by the euro­sceptic Bruges group, had not been included in the official conference programme.

He later received a standing ovation from a couple of dozen members of the audience.

The event also attracted a number of Tory MPs, including former minister John Redwood, who stood at the back.

However, one Tory MP, Anne Main, reportedly walked out of the meeting within minutes apparently in protest at Mr Farage's attacks on another of the speakers, arch eurosceptic Conservative MP Bill Cash.

Mr Farage called on Tories to lend their votes to Ukip at next year's European elections to send a shockwave through the establishment on the question of Europe. He predicted the party could take enough seats at the next General Election to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. He also said he might change his opinion of David Cameron as he called on the Prime Minister to challenge the policy that will open UK's borders to immigration from Bulgaria and Romania next year.

The offer of local electoral pacts was yesterday comprehensively rejected by the Chancellor George Osborne.