THE man who has become Ukip's first elected politician in Scotland has vowed to campaign against Alex Salmond's plans for greater immigration under independence.

David Coburn said that he would fight for a No vote in the referendum on behalf of Ukip this summer, and "make it very clear" to voters that the First Minister wanted to boost Scotland's working age population through immigration.

"Mr Salmond is going to have a shock," he said in an interview with the Sunday Herald.

Coburn also claimed Ukip was more representative of Scottish values than the SNP, and predicted Nigel Farage's party would hold the balance of power at Westminster after next year's General Election - and be in government after the following election.

Earlier, Mr Coburn sparked a rowafter he said there was a "perception" that Glasgow City Council favours gays and lesbians. Mr Coburn, who is openly gay, said the local authority should try to dispel this perception and added that equal marriage amounted to "rubbing people's noses in it".

Coburn, 55, who was born in Glasgow but lives in London, said his anti-EU party had been supported by disaffected Labour voters.

He said: "The Labour Party use people as electoral cattle and they never give anything back. That's why folk in Easterhouse are coming out for us. They're just sick to death of it."

He also said working-class voters liked Ukip's anti-immigration message and would oppose the SNP's plans for more migrants.

The SNP government's White Paper on independence said there is a "clear economic rationale" for "healthy population growth".

Instead of Westminster's "aggressive" approach on "reducing the overall numbers of migrants", it said an independent Scotland would "welcome people who want to come to work and live" here.

The financial thresholds for entry would be lowered, a new points-based system introduced, and work visas offered to international students wishing to stay in the country after graduation.

Coburn said he would use his MEP status to raise the issue as part of Ukip's campaign against a Yes vote, which he said would be "catastrophic" for the economy.

"We cannot have mass open-door immigration. It's not a racial thing, it's not an anti-Eastern European thing, it's an economic thing. If we have unlimited immigrants we can't plan the health service, we can't plan pensions, we can't plan anything.

"That's what everybody is saying on the estates, 'I'm trying to get accommodation for my daughter or my son and I can't get it because it's been given to somebody from somewhere else, and they get first preference'. That's where Mr Salmond is going to have a shock. [More immigration] is not the settled view of the Scottish people. If I'm elected I will make that very clear."

A Treasury analysis paper out this week says Scotland's growing elderly population will need an extra 480,000 Scots of working age by 2036 to pay for their care under independence - a rise only possible through mass migration.

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, the SNP candidate who was fighting Coburn for the sixth MEP seat, said: "The news that David Coburn and Ukip will be getting more actively involved in the No campaign is an enormous embarrassment for David Cameron and Alistair Darling.

"The fact that one of the most reactionary parties in the UK, which is also dictating the agenda at Westminster, is working for a No vote says everything about why Scotland needs to vote Yes and set our own priorities.

"Ukip's nasty politics represents the worst of what the anti-independence campaign is offering people in Scotland."

Despite Ukip never winning a council seat in Scotland and having no MPs, Coburn said the party would acquire real power after next year's General Election.

"I don't think either Labour or Conservatives will have a majority. Ukip will hold the balance of power and be able to force an in-out referendum [on EU membership] and at the same time force commonsense policies on whoever happens to be the government of the day.

"At the election after that, I would assume we will have a Ukip government.

"And if everyone says that is complete airy-fairy nonsense, all they have to do is see the election results [this weekend]."

But he ruled out an early coalition with the Tories, saying: "We're not as dumb as the Liberals."

If in power, he said Ukip would introduce a single rate of income tax. And he said Ukip wanted Britain to become a "tax haven" for business and investors.

"If we can turn Britain into what many might regard as a tax haven we're going to bring a lot of talent and money into the country. What is wrong with that? That, in turn, will boost the economy. We will be able to build more schools, more hospitals, more houses."

He denied Ukip was an English nationalist party.

He said: "Ukip is more representative of Scottish values than anything else: thrift, education, hard work, care for those less fortunate than yourself, probity in government.

"The SNP do not represent Scottish values at all. They won't let people speak and their fascist bully boys on the internet prevent people saying what they want to say. That's not democratic, that's not Scottish."