Nigel Farage has been accused of adopting Nazi style propaganda tactics to help win the EU referendum.

The Ukip leader unveiled a new poster showing a vast queue of refugees stretching into the distance, and deployed a fleet of vans emblazoned with the image to follow him around central London.

Next to it was the headline “Breaking Point” and underneath it “the EU has failed us all”.

But as with the "battle" on the Thames on Wednesday, Mr Farage's stunt was crashed by a counter-protest by Remain campaigners.

At least two smaller vans showed Mr Farage's face next to a pint and lit cigarette, suggesting the Ukip leader could be the next Health Minister and underlined with the slogan: "Don't wake up with Nigel next Friday".

Ukip said its vans showed a real picture of migrants entering Slovenia, a country that joined the EU in 2004 and had failed to control its border.

The poster also appeared in major national newspapers including the Telegraph, the Daily Star, and the Daily Express.

The sentiment behind it was condemned by Bonnie Greer, the American playwright, who famously won plaudits for taking on the BNP leader Nick Griffin when they both appeared on the BBC's Question Tme.

She tweeted an image of the poster alongside a quote from the Nazi military chief Hermann Goering and the hashtag Farage.

“All you have to do it tell them they are being attacked. Works the same way in any country”.

The SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon described the poster as “disgusting” while one of her MPs, Pete Wishard, also weighed in saying that a “vote for leave is pretty much become a vote for petty xenophobia and anti immigrant rhetoric”.

The author John O’Farrell added: “No white migrants then? The debate has sunk to a new low, with Farage exposed as the racist we always knew he was.”

What to believe about the EU referendum

Mr Farage unveiled the poster outside the EU’s headquarters in the UK – that used to house Conservative Central Office.

The poster vans then went on a tour of central London.