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| Nigel Farage blasts 'fascist' nationalists after Edinburgh confrontation | Nigel Farage blasts 'fascist' nationalists after Edinburgh confrontation |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| UKIP leader Nigel Farage has described protesters who besieged him in an Edinburgh pub as "fascist scum". | UKIP leader Nigel Farage has described protesters who besieged him in an Edinburgh pub as "fascist scum". |
| Mr Farage had to be escorted from the Canons' Gait pub in a police van after angry confrontations on Thursday. | Mr Farage had to be escorted from the Canons' Gait pub in a police van after angry confrontations on Thursday. |
| He told BBC Scotland the incident was deeply racist and displayed a total hatred of the English. | He told BBC Scotland the incident was deeply racist and displayed a total hatred of the English. |
| Mr Farage called on Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond to condemn the behaviour. The SNP said the UKIP leader had "lost the plot". | |
| Mr Farage was in Edinburgh to launch his party's Scottish campaign following recent electoral gains in England. | |
| Police said two men had been arrested following the protest. | Police said two men had been arrested following the protest. |
| Speaking to the Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Farage said: "If this is the face of Scottish nationalism, it's a pretty ugly nation." | |
| He added: "The anger, the hatred, the shouting, the snarling, the swearing was all linked in to a desire for the Union Jack to be burnt." | He added: "The anger, the hatred, the shouting, the snarling, the swearing was all linked in to a desire for the Union Jack to be burnt." |
| The UKIP leader said the demonstrators did not represent Scotland and dismissed suggestions his party was an irrelevance north of the border. | |
| "The fact that 50 yobbo fascist scum turn up and aren't prepared to listen to the debate, I absolutely refuse to believe is representative of Scottish public opinion," Mr Farage said. | |
| He said he had heard before that some parts of Scottish nationalism were "akin to fascism" but "yesterday I saw it face-to-face". | |
| Condemnation call | |
| Mr Farage also told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that the protesters were "filled with a total and utter hatred of the English". | |
| "For some reason the British media has never talked about the excesses of Scottish nationalism and how deeply unpleasant they can be," he said. | |
| Mr Farage did not suggest this was anything to do with the SNP as a party. | |
| But he added: "These people were supporters of Scottish nationalism, virulently opposed to the English, all sorts of suggestions as to what we could do with the Union Jack and I would like to hear Alex Salmond come out and condemn this sort of behaviour. I challenge him today to do that." | |
| An SNP spokesman said: "Anyone who heard the interview with Nigel Farage on BBC this morning would have thought he has completely lost the plot." | |
| In a tweet, campaign group Radical Independence called an emergency protest against Mr Farage ahead of his engagement in Edinburgh. | |
| It describes itself as a grassroots and radical campaign for an independent Scotland. |