“I have invested the best part of my adult political life in helping to try to build up this movement and I am far from perfect but I do think I am able, through the media, to deliver a good, simple, understandable message.”

It’s a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth.

This is taking place inside Europe. This is taking place inside a once great nation. The nation that invented democracy. We are on the edge of total social breakdown. And frankly, as far as the euro is concerned and the austerity measures are concerned, the medicine is killing the patient.

Puppet Papademos is in place, and as Athens caught fire on Sunday night he rather took my breath away – he said violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country.

If an idea is indeed sensible, it will eventually become just part of the accepted wisdom.

When people stand up and talk about the great success that the EU has been, I’m not sure anybody saying it really believes it themselves anymore.

I admire [Alex] Salmond in many ways but my problem with him has always been this independence thing within the EU, which is rubbish.

Basically, Herman van Rompuy wants the European Union to become a debt union, which may be acceptable to some of the southern countries who are effectively bust. To the northern countries, it is not.

The European Union’s finished. It doesn’t work. You know, we just had the honor in Britain of being the first country that rejected membership. You know, you could be next. It could be Denmark next. It could be Dexit.

Ukip policies are common-sense policies.

I am disgusted at the way May has been speaking. The EU nationals living in the UK came here legally and they have protected rights.

Whatever the polls do between now and then, winning is what matters.

In Britain, we have an open door to half a billion people. We still retain the ability to decide who comes from the rest of the world. But we’ve effectively shut down the rest of the world because 4,000 people a week are coming from the E.U.

We know the costs of Europe. What are the benefits?

Our feeling is that the status quo often gets a boost and this is the new status quo.

Having established that good ideas do indeed come in from the cold, start on the fringes and become mainstream, can we make any predictions about what the next move will be?

If there’s labour shortages, we issue work permits. It’s as simple as that.