Scottish election: UKIP calls for abolition of MSPs

UKIP launched its manifesto in Edinburgh

The UK Independence Party believes in a Scotland where there are no MSPs, all students are given grants and young offenders are sent to boot camps.

The vision was outlined by the party's leader Nigel Farage at its Holyrood manifesto launch in Edinburgh.

He said: "Scotland's democratic spirit now has no champions but the UK Independence Party."

UKIP is fielding 29 candidates at the Scottish Parliament election taking place on 5 May.

In other policy commitments in its manifesto, the party said that it would restrict immigration, repeal the Human Rights Act, scrap the smoking ban and end subsidies for "monstrous, climate-irrelevant, cost-ineffective wind farms".

UKIP said it would keep the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh but "replace MSPs with Scottish Westminster MPs".

The manifesto added: "Sentences will mean what they say. Life will mean life. Six months will not mean six weeks. No more early release for the likes of Megrahi."

UKIP would also introduce a "three-strikes-and-you're-out" rule for habitual criminals, and young offenders would be sent to boot camps.

On education, it said it would let pupils leave school early to enter training schemes or apprenticeships, similar to what the Scottish Conservatives are planning.

The party would also allow universities to select students on merit and scrap loans while restoring full grants for all Scottish university students.

Mr Farage said: "UKIP alone, among the serious political parties, says no one but we, the people of Scotland, or those we elect should make our laws or tax us.

"Whichever way you use your first vote in the Scottish Parliament, please use your second or regional vote to bring real, direct democracy to Scotland, to end all subsidies to pointless wind farms, undemocratically inflicted on our countryside, to save our gallant Scottish regiments, our air bases, our dockyards and our coastguard and to bring street crime, especially knife crime, to an end."