General Election 2015: Nigel Farage would accept result if Brits voted to stay in the EU and says it would make Ukip even stronger

Ukip leader points to meteoric rise of SNP as proof that his party would not be made ‘redundant’ if it lost an EU referendum

Nigel Farage admitted he was not feeling 'quite as sharp and as fit as I should have been' early on in the campaign (Carl Court/Getty Images)

Nigel Farage would accept the result if Brits voted to stay in the European Union and said such a loss would make Ukip even stronger.

The Ukip leader,speaking during a special Q&A show in Birmingham following the main leaders’ Question Time show, pointed to the surge in support for the SNP despite the party losing the referendum on Scottish independence last autumn and claimed Ukip could replicate its meteoric rise.

Responding to an audience member who suggested Ukip would be “fundamentally flawed” if voters opted to remain in the EU, Mr Farage said: "Would it make UKIP redundant? No, because just look at what's happened in Scotland.

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“The Scots rejected their independence referendum and yet the SNP have gone to remarkable heights since then."

He insisted he would honour the outcome as long as it was a “full, free and fair referendum”.

Ukip’s manifesto commits to holding a referendum by the end of 2015 but it is an outcome that is unlikely to happen because the only other party promising to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is the Conservatives, and they have set out plans to hold it in 2017.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have said they will only hold a referendum on membership of the EU if more powers are transferred to Brussels.

Last night David Cameron announced his first “red line” when he told the Question Time audience that his commitment to holding an EU referendum was non-negotiable in any post-election coalition discussions.

It could prove to be a sticking point blocking a second Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, with Nick Clegg yet to say whether his opposition to holding a referendum is among his “red lines”.

So far he has outlined four red lines – on his party’s commitment to raising education spending, increasing the personal allowance to £12,500, holding a “stability” budget within the first 50 days of a new government and spending an extra £8 billion a year on the NHS.