Internal party critics of Ukip's leader in Scotland David Coburn are "totally and utterly irrelevant", according to Nigel Farage. The party's UK leader launched the attack in the wake of revelations that ten senior activists had asked for the "gaffe-prone" Coburn to be removed from his position. The activists warned in the letter that Coburn, as "the Scottish face of the Brexit campaign", could jeopardise Leave's chances in Scotland. Farage stood by his Scottish leader on a campaign visit to Inverness, defending Coburn's often controversial remarks. He said of the critics: "Oh, the jealousy of the disappointed in life. A few disappointed people who are not in positions to win seats. Totally and utterly irrelevant." He added of Coburn: "We could become puritans, I suppose, and follow an Oliver Cromwell approach to politics but it's never going to happen. "Perhaps we say some things sometimes that don't fit in with the PC agenda that now dominates the whole of Edinburgh - so what?" Last year, Coburn found himself in hot water after comparing the SNP's international development minister Humza Yousaf to extremist Abu Hamza. He also recently faced criticism after an interview with STV's Bernard Ponsonby in which he was unable to cite sources for figures in the Ukip manifesto. Coburn branded his critics within the party as "absolute nobodies", adding: "What they describe as gaffes are actually designed to get us publicity.  "Most of them are very, very boring, stodgy sort of types and they wouldn't know how to get publicity if a brick dropped on their head. "We need to do stuff to get publicity and if I was just another boring suit we simply wouldn't get publicity and we wouldn't be where we are today. He added: "We're now at the point of getting seven MSPs elected to the Scottish Parliament. What's wrong with that?"