UKIP in Scotland is to be taken out of "special measures" next month and its all-powerful leader will also have some of his supreme powers removed.

The party will reintroduce internal democratic decision-making functions in a desperate bid to shore up support amid claims that there are only 400 members left.

The London-based hierarchy enforced special measures in Scotland in 2013 following a period of in-fighting which meant leader David Coburn could not be unseated and was free to select candidates for the Holyrood elections.

The MEP used the privileged position to put himself top of one regional list and offer high-ranking places to key allies, including Calum Walker, whose father, David, has donated thousands of pounds to Ukip Scotland.

His Dundee-based firm Ronatree Ltd handed over £20,000 in March this year and made a payment of £5,000 in February 2015.

Calum Walker, who is now UKIP Scotland chairman, wrote to party members on December 1 to set out a new structure which will follow the boundaries of Scottish parliament regions, reducing the number of branches in Scotland to just eight.

The letter, seen by the Sunday Herald, said: “The new branch structure has been approved by the National Executive Committee and will result in Scotland coming out of special measures.”

Previously Ukip had rival factions in branches across Scotland, leading to a power struggle which saw several candidates quit before the Holyrood elections when they were not ranked highly on regional lists by Coburn.

One former candidate, teenager Euan Blockley, is now a Conservative Party poster boy having been selected to stand in the council elections in Glasgow.

Many Ukip members also walked before the Holyrood elections amid claims that the party leader “stitched up” the selection process – and it is thought that party membership may have fallen from 1,000 last year to only 400.

Paul Nuttall was elected the national party leader last month and one of his first actions was to reconfirm Coburn as Scottish leader. In a joint statement the pair said they would target the “working class” and the “abandoned” Labour voters north of the border.

One former party member, who quit before last year’s Holyrood elections, said: “Nuttall criticises the cosy establishment, but he won’t allow Scottish members to vote for their own regional leader. Instead, there remains a leader whose right-wing rhetoric of Christmas past will take more than a team of Ukip press officers to expunge.

“And even if they did manage to paint Coburn a new colour for the purposes of rebranding Ukip, they’re still stuck with a Scottish chairman whose wealthy father happens to have donated more than £20,000 to the party.

"They can try to paint themselves a hint of red, but Scotland finds them irrelevant. It’s over.”

Another former Ukip Scotland member, who left after the EU referendum, added: “If I lived down south I would rejoin but in Scotland everything is stitched up. All the decent members stood down as office-bearers, leaving the leader’s pals in post. There isn’t even a proper committee.

“It’s a shame because it puts off hard working people dedicated to campaigning.”

A Ukip national spokesman said confirmed that the Scottish party would come out of special measures "at the end of January" and a committee of branch chairmen would become the decision-making body. "But obviously David will be involved and will have a big influence." He refused to confirm the party's membership numbers north of the Border, adding: "We're not like Tesco with a branch in every village."