THE most straightforward, unembellished report of Ukip's Holyrood manifesto launch on Thursday would have told you there is something, well, different about Nigel Farage's party.

The 'Kippers' polices included an increase in the drink drive limit, allowing smoking in pubs, scrapping restrictions on air guns and the return of grammar schools.

But even a prospectus so wildly out of step with the main Holyrood parties fails to convey the scale of Ukip's weirdness.

An accordionist - described by David Coburn, the party's Scottish leader, as "the second best in the world" - played a selection of old dance tunes as a handful of middle-aged supporters took their seats in a gloomy hotel function room that could have been the set of the Addams Family movie.

Mr Farage was matey and fluent as ever.

Mr Coburn seemed mainly interested in flouting the rules of "political correctness," a phrase he used often. Promising weekly bin collections, for example, he said he did not want Scotland infested with rats "and turned into Cairo".

If that carried a whiff of inappropriateness, it was nothing compared with the pictures that later emerged of a young activist who had been greeting people at the door.

Jack Neill, a former candidate, had been snapped with his face "blacked up" and wearing a clown nose and curly wig.

Add in stories of infighting while the 26 candidates were being selected and Ukip Scotland begins to look, at best, like a rather pathetic shambles of a party.

It lacks any real organisation on the ground, which makes fighting elections difficult. The Scots Tories, who might have been worried with the EU referendum looming, believe it's highly unlikely Ukip will make anything like enough of a dent in their vote to win a first ever seat at Holyrood.

That referendum, of course, is what Ukip really cares about. But even that gets messy for them.

Mr Farage is a key figure in Grassroots Out, known as GO, one of two groups vying to become the official Leave campaign.

It's hard to tell if they will help or hinder the Brexit cause if they lose out to rivals Vote Leave, the more establishment campaign group run in Scotland by former Labour minister Tom Harris.

Unlike the unashamedly populist GO, Vote Leave wants to play down immigration as an issue in the referendum debate and instead focus on the economic case for freeing the UK from EU contributions and regulations.

Vote Leave is also mindful that, to put it politely, Mr Farage's appeal only extends so far. How they will all work together when the Electoral Commission selects the main campaign groups in a few days' time is anyone's guess. In Scotland relations have been further strained further after Labour Leave, originally an offshoot of Vote Leave, seems to have thrown its lot in with GO.

So Mr Farage's claim that Scots will move to Leave in their droves when the referendum campaign hots up is just so much hot air?

Perhaps not. The arguments for Scotland being out of the EU started to be made this week.

Mr Harris said Brexit would benefit the country's universities, arguing they would be able to charge EU and rUK students, thereby safeguarding free tuition for Scots.

During a visit to Peterhead, George Eustice, the UK fisheries ministers, said control over fishing and agriculture would transfer from Brussels to Holyrood.

Jim Sillars reached out to SNP supporters, telling them they would be better off outside an EU that would always be hostile to Scottish independence.

These messages will find support. And if Vote Leave takes the lead, and the various Brexiteers can avoid civil war, the experienced Mr Harris should be relied upon to mount a professional campaign.

A TNS poll this week put support for Remain on 51 per cent and Leave on 19 per cent in Scotland. That left a lot - 29 per cent -of don't-knows.

Given their supporters are more likely to vote, Leave strategists believe they could be a long way behind in polls and still snatch it.

The main Remain campaign, Stronger In, has been very low key up to now.

In fairness it has taken a clear - and surely correct - decision to let the Holyrood election take precedence. After May 5, however, it should not be complacent. No matter how chaotic the Leave camp looks.