Farage: Jeremy Corbyn Is A 'Gift' To UKIP

Nigel Farage has told Sky News Jeremy Corbyn is a "gift" for UKIP, and joked that the Green Party is in "real trouble" after Labour elected a "vegetarian teetotaller that rides a bicycle, has got a beard and comes from north London".

The UKIP leader was speaking ahead of his party's annual conference in Doncaster, where he is set to accuse Mr Corbyn of being "lacking in principle" and say his party will welcome those who question the Labour leader's views on the Queen, the military and immigration.

Mr Farage told Sky News: "Respectable old Labour voters don't want to vote for someone who wants to abolish the Queen, give away the Falklands, has sympathy for the IRA and now, on the one thing he might have kept them on board with, his long-term opposition to the EU, he has even surrendered on that."

He is expected to highlight the policy differences between Mr Corbyn and many of his own frontbench team when he speaks at Doncaster Racecourse.

UKIP scored strongly in many traditional Labour seats at the General Election, and they polled nearly a quarter of all votes cast in Doncaster North, the constituency of former Labour leader Ed Miliband.

The main focus of Mr Farage's speech will be the upcoming EU referendum, and he will argue that UKIP has the resources and support to lead the "No" campaign in the vote, which will be held before the end of 2017.

Mr Farage told Sky News he believes immigration will be the main issue of the campaign, and that "everything I said (on the issue) I think has proved to be true".

He said: "I took a lot of stick in the General Election for saying that I believe that open door immigration and border controls was the number one issue in British politics.

"A lot of people in the Westminster set find that all a bit too difficult, all a bit awkward, not the sort of thing you discuss at dinner in Notting Hill.

"Six months on from that election, everything I said, I think, has proved to be true.

"Immigration is far and away the biggest issue."

Nationally, the party has been consistently polling in double figures since the election, despite securing just one MP: Tory defector, Douglas Carswell in Clacton, Essex.

However, UKIP admits ticket sales for the event have been sluggish, with the leadership authorising cut-price deals to fill the seats.

Two-day passes are being offered with a 20% reduction together with offers on UKIP merchandise.

The party says it was inevitable that interest would wane compared with last year, following its success in the European parliamentary elections and Mr Carswell's decision to jump ship.

But some analysts suggest infighting between Mr Farage and members of his team, which bubbled up in the weeks immediately after the election, could be to blame.

Others argue that Mr Farage has ignored the needs of his party while trying to seize the reins of the broader "leave" campaign ahead of the EU referendum.