UK NEWS
UKIP LEADER OFFERS A POLL PACT WITH TORIES
Ukip leader Nigel Farage
Friday September 21,2012
By Macer Hall
UKIP leader Nigel Farage will today make a dramatic offer to David Cameron to form a pact with the Tories at the next General Election.
He will use his keynote speech at Ukip’s annual conference to raise the prospect of an alliance at the polls.
But he will demand in return the promise of an in-or-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.
Mr Farage will caution: “Because the people have been let down so many times before, we want that deal written in blood.”
His audacious offer is expected to be seen at Westminster as a sign of growing confidence in Ukip ranks following surging popularity ratings for the anti-EU party in recent opinion polls.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Farage said that many wealthy former Tory donors were switching their support to Ukip because they were “pretty bloody angry” with Coalition policies.
The Daily Express has led a crusade to take Britain out of the EU.
We are prepared to talk to anyone about an electoral dea
 |
A senior source close to Mr Farage
|
A senior source close to Mr Farage said: “We are prepared to talk to anyone about an electoral deal, even the Lib Dems, so long as they are prepared to discuss a straight in-or-out referendum on our EU membership.”
Many Tory MPs fear Ukip could cost them millions of votes at the next election, due in May 2015, and could deny Mr Cameron an overall Tory majority.
Some are already pressing for a “non-aggression” pact with Ukip, including agreements not to contest key constituencies, or even a merger of the two parties.
Tory Euro MP Daniel Hannan said yesterday: “I’d like to move to a position where people who vote Ukip and people who vote Conservative at the moment can support the same candidates.”
Earlier this week, senior Tory MP Brian Binley wrote on his internet blog: “Support for Ukip is growing. Conservatives and Ukip share a lot of common ground on Europe and a re-alignment with supporters of Ukip on the issue might also help win back some of the voters who abandoned us for them after the last election.
“We can’t keep patronising Ukip as extremists. They represent the strength of feeling on an issue that is so important to the British people.”
As Ukip members gathered for the conference last night, the party’s deputy leader Paul Nuttall said: “If we come off the back of the European elections and we’re still polling double digits I think the Conservatives will find it very difficult not to come to us and offer us some sort of deal.”
Ukip came second to the Tories in the last European Parliament elections in the UK in 2009. Many Westminster insiders believe they could come first in the next euro elections in 2014.
Mr Farage is expected to delight the Ukip faithful at the conference at Birmingham Town Hall today with a barnstorming attack on the Brussels bureaucracy.
He will warn that the determination of top Eurocrats to press for even closer union and more centralised power in Brussels will make an EU referendum in Britain unstoppable.
“The game has changed,” he will say, arguing that Mr Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem Coalition has failed to grasp that the EU is bent on much closer union between member states and a new treaty handing even more powers to Brussels is already on the way.
The UK Government will eventually be forced to hold a referendum on the treaty changes and should recognise the fact, Mr Farage will say.
The Ukip leader will also introduce one of his party’s latest recruits – former Tory grandee Lord Stevens.
Earlier this week, the Daily Express revealed that the former Express Newspapers chairman has become a Ukip member.
Posts
