BBC Question Time came from Wales on Thursday night but from the outset all talk was of events earlier in the day at the European Parliament in France.
Ukip’s Steven Woolfe is recovering in hospital after an altercation with a fellow MEP, leading Leanne Wood to brand the party “thugs”.
The Plaid Cymru leader said: “This to me just shows the party is full of thugs. Fighting in politics is just not on.”
Ukip was represented on the show by Neil Hamilton and he was subsequently given the opportunity to speak.
He said: “To call members of Ukip in their tens of thousands are a party of thugs, I think is absolutely disgraceful.”
Hamilton then spoke of what the party would do to investigate in a rather rambling speech which was eventually interrupted by host David Dimbleby.
Hamilton said: “If [an investigation] proves that someone threw a punch and caused some actual bodily harm, than actually that’s more of a matter for the police.
“... we do not condone this kind of behaviour.”
Dimbleby then said: “Neil. Neil. Neil, Neil, Neil.
“What you’ve just said is very interesting. You’re talking about Steven Woolfe because earlier today you said on the BBC ‘I think Steven picked a fight’.”
Hamilton retorted: “I did not say that.”
Dimbleby, reading from a transcript, said: “Steven picked a fight and came off worse.
“That is what you said.”
A shaken-looking Hamilton said: “Erm.. yes.”
Cue much laughter from the audience.
Woolfe, who is running to become the party’s new leader, is now recovering in hospital following the incident. The other person involved is believed to be Mike Hookem, a former serviceman and Ukip’s defence spokesman.
Scans have shown Woolfe did not suffer bleeding on the brain or any blood clots.
Speaking to reporters outside the hospital this afternoon, Farage called it “a pretty serious medical incident”.
The alleged fight happened outside a room where Ukip’s MEPs were meeting. A row is believed to have broken out over claims Woolfe had considered defecting to the Tories.
When asked to confirm the other man involved was Hookem, Farage said: “I’m not going to get involved in the blame game.
“We’ve got a colleague, who was in a very bad place a few hours ago, so much so that a few of us thought ‘is he actually going to make it?’
“For the moment, I just want to say, for his sake and his family’s sake, thank God that he is getting better.”
He added: “It’s two grown men, getting involved in an altercation... it’s not very seemly behaviour but I’m not today going to get involved in the blame game, name names or say who did what. But it shouldn’t have happened.”
He called the incident “a dispute that finished up physically” but added he did not witness it himself, saying it happened outside the room where the meeting took place.