Ukip will run its own separate campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, the party’s leader has confirmed.
The eurosceptic party’s campaign will run parallel to two already-existing campaigns, a decision the party says is justified by the its unique ground campaign strength.
“Ukip is a political party and whoever gets the designation as the official campaign will have to be an umbrella of some kind,” Nigel Farage told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“The unique role that UKIP can play within this is that we have 50,000 members, hundreds of branches across the country and we can do the ground campaign.”
Mr Farage however said he would not refuse to work with anybody and that he would welcome everyone, including Labour and Conservative MPs, into his group.
“The last time we debated the European elections in Britain it was the European elections in 2014 and Ukip won those elections,” he said.
“If you add up all those people who voted Ukip you get probably 60 per cent of the vote the no campaign needs to win this campaign.
“When I speak at townhall meetings around the country I’m very happy if Conservative politicians or Labour politicians work with us.”
Mr Farage said that the issue of migration would be key to the campaign, claiming Europe's asylum policy has “opened the door to an exodus of biblical proportions”.
The ‘out’ campaign was handed a boost today by the Electoral Commission after it recommended that the wording of the referendum question be changed to be more neutral.
The Government had originally planned a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question – where ‘yes’ meant staying in the EU and ‘no’ meant leaving.
But the Commission said voters should now be asked to choose between “remain” or “leave” options.
David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on EU membership by 2017 but has first said he would produce a renegotiation package to change the terms of membership for the UK.
