Revealed: 'Voter from Devon' featured in Ukip's new election manifesto is actually the party's events manager

Lizzy Vaid poses as a voter from Devon but works for Ukip in London

Farage says the fact she is ‘half-Indian and works for us’ is a non-issue

Also challenged about whether his German wife has cost a Brit a job



Row over manifesto emerged as Ukip launches new campaign



Millionaire ex-Tory donor Paul Sykes is funding new controversial adverts

They claim 'British workers are hit hard by unlimited foreign labour'



Critics compared language those by the far-right British National Party

Voters will got to the polls to elect MEPs on May 22, with Ukip tipped to win

Nigel Farage was today forced to deny Ukip’s new election campaign is racist, as it emerged a woman posing as a voter in the party’s manifesto works for him.

Lizzy Vaid appears in a full-page photograph as a voter from Devon, but is actually Ukip’s events manager and an assistant to the party leader.

Mr Farage claimed the fact that Miss Vaid is ‘half-Indian and works for us’ is a non-issue, as the party became embroiled in a row about a series of provocative anti-immigration posters.

Scroll down for video



Lizzy Vaid appears as a voter from Devon in the new Ukip manifesto, but actually works for the party and is an assistant to leader Nigel Farage Miss Vaid has previously defended her party against claims of racism Mr Farage appears in the manifesto, boasting that his party is being honest Mr Farage launched Ukip’s campaign for the European Parliament elections on May 22 in Sheffield today.

It includes a controversial £1.5million poster campaign which urges voters: ‘Take back control of our country.’

The 2014 Ukip manifesto – titled ‘Create an earthquake’ – declares: ‘We want our country back. Don’t you?’

It features a full-page picture of Miss Vaid, with a large quote stating: ‘I’ll be voting Ukip because they’re the only party listening to what people want.’

However, she works in London and on her Twitter account she describes herself as ‘UKIP Events Manager and Assistant to Nigel Farage, as well as a lover of social occasions’.

It also emerged that Miss Vaid appeared on another leaflet earlier this year aimed at voters in the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election.

Embarrassingly, only last week she tweeted a link to a story about Labour ‘distributing false leaflets about Ukip’.

Controversial: Ukip's new posters are being funded by £1.5m of funding from millionaire ex-Tory donor Paul Skyes to launch its biggest ever publicity drive ahead of the European Parliament elections in May

Adverts: Under the slogan 'take back control of our country', the party complain that 75 per cent of British laws are made in Brussels and that UK taxpayers fund the 'celebrity lifestyle' of EU bureaucrats Mr Farage faced difficult questions about the apparent attempt to use a member of Ukip staff to pose as a voter. ‘I don’t think you’d ask this question of the Labour party, the Lib Dems or the Conservatives who often have group pictures,’ he told Sky News. ‘You know, the leader with 25 people standing behind them. And you never ask to see the CV of any of those.’ He went on: ‘The fact that Lizzie Laid is half-Indian and works for us is as far as we are concerned a non-issue. ‘She is somebody in our promotional material who is going to vote Ukip. She joined Ukip, she got a job with Ukip because she believes in what we stand for. What on earth is wrong with that?’

'IS YOUR GERMAN WIFE TAKING SOMEONE'S JOB?' BBC MAN ASKS FARAGE

Ukip leader Nigel Farage was put on the spot today about whether his German wife had taken a job which could have gone to a Brit. BBC political editor Nick Robinson challenged him to explain why he employed Kirsten as a secretary on a taxpayer-funded salary from Brussels. Mr Farage insisted that 'nobody else could do that job', which included checking emails for him at midnight. ‘She came here as a highly skilled person earning a high salary paying a very large amount of tax,’ the UKIP leader insisted. ‘I don’t think anybody else would want to be in my house at midnight going through emails and getting me briefed for the next day. It’s a very different situation to a mass of hundreds of thousands of people coming in and flooding the lower end of the labour market.’ Asked whether a British person could take the position as his secretary, Mr Farage insisted: ‘Nobody else could do that job, not unless they were married to me.’ Mr Farage said his wife earned a ‘very modest’ wage and worked ‘extremely unsociable hours’ for ‘up to’ seven days a week.



Ukip leader Nigel Farage contrasted the dinner at Chequers with his own trip to Sheffield today to launch his controversial posters

Mr Farage told MailOnline voters on May 22 could deliver a 'severe shock and maybe even a political earthquake'

CAMERON INVITES VAN ROMPUY FOR DINNER AND A SLEEPOVER

David Cameron is hosting arch-Eurocrat Herman Van Rompuy for dinner at Chequers tonight, just weeks before crucial European elections. The Tory leader will dine with the President of the European Council, who is also due to stay the night at the Prime Minister’s official rural retreat. Nigel Farage said the timing of Mr Cameron’s intimate meal with the Brussels bureaucrat ‘could not be better’ as Ukip prepared to unveil a £1.5million poster campaign attacking immigration from the EU. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'This is one of a number of meetings that President Van Rompuy is having with heads of government around Europe. 'It is an opporunity to talk around the future direction of the next European Commission and EU reform priorities. 'Also I am sure they will discuss the latest on the situation in Ukraine. It is a working dinner.' The spokesman confirmed Mr Van Rompuy would also be staying the night: 'If someone is coming for dinner in the evening, it is polite to ask them to stay the night.' However, he refused to be drawn on whether he would be served a continental breakfast tomorrow morning.

Asked why Miss Vaid is not described as a Ukip staff member in the manifesto, Mr Farage replied: ‘I don’t see the need. You’re going down this media route, do you want us to say the religion of all our candidates?

‘Or do you want us to say we are living in the United Kingdom, wherever we come from, whatever religion we are, we are part of this country and we are all in this together. You seem to be wanting to segment people out.

‘I can't really win with you, can I? On the one hand you're saying that we are talking about a white working class in Britain, and secondly, when I tell you that working directly for me is a girl who is half-Indian, you've got a problem with that too? Just make your mind up. I don't mind being criticised, but do make your mind up what the criticism is...’

The interview with Sky News presenter Kay Burley divided opinion, with many viewers complain that it had been unfair on Mr Farage.

Mr Farage also denied the new poster campaign is racist. The party has paid for billboards across the country to be emblazoned with messages such as: ‘26million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?’

Another has a picture of a construction worker begging on the street, with the slogan: ‘EU policy at work. British workers are hit hard by unlimited cheap labour.’

‘It is the job of the British government firstly to defend the realm, and secondly to put the interests of the people that live in this country first.

‘That's what we should be doing, and I'm afraid we've turned our backs on that over the course of the last few years which has led to much, much unhappiness among millions of families.’

He told ITV News: ‘The Westminster political elite have opened up our borders to levels of immigration Britain's never seen and they decry anybody that wants to talk about it as racist.

‘They've done it for years. They've tried to sweep this whole issue under the carpet and we're talking about it openly and honestly.’

All the posters call on voters to ‘Take Back Control of Our Country’ by backing Ukip in the European elections.

Tory MP Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, wrote on Twitter: ‘At a time when our country really needs to come together, the Ukip advertising campaign is deeply divisive, offensive and ignorant.’

Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth said: ‘UKIP would have us believe they stand for working people but the truth is very different - they're even more right wing than the Tories.

‘A vote for UKIP is a vote for higher taxes for working families, charges to see your GP, huge tax giveaways for the rich and even deeper cuts to public services. Only Labour can make Britain better off.’