Barack Obama has been branded the most anti-British US president in history, by Nigel Farage.

The Ukip leader, a prominent member of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, took aim at Obama ahead of the president’s visit to Britain next week, during which he is expected to express support for the remain camp.

“Mercifully, this American president, who is the most anti-British American president there has ever been, won’t be in office for much longer, and I hope will be replaced by somebody rather more sensible when it comes to trading relationships with this country,” Farage said.

Handing the government’s pro-EU pamphlet back to Downing Street in protest against £9.3m being used to distribute it nationally, the Ukip leader challenged David Cameron to a face-to-face debate on the referendum.

“If this leaflet had genuinely contained objective facts, I simply would not have a problem with it. But when it tells me that if we vote to remain we will keep our own border controls, when the truth is now that we have an open door to 508 million people, this isn’t fact, it’s false assertion,” Farage said.

“This needs debating properly. If Mr Cameron is so confident of what’s in this leaflet, I will debate it with him, head to head, any place, any time, anywhere. Every country in the world has access to the single market. The truth is Britain has a rotten deal.”