Ukip’s Farage ‘would enter coalition for EU vote’

Mr Farage was speaking after a YouGov poll for LBC radio suggested Conservative supporters would be ready to back a Tory-Ukip coalition if next year’s elections end in a hung Parliament.

Asked which party Ukip should form a coalition with if it held the balance of power, 76 per cent of Tory voters said the Conservatives, compared with 48 per cent of Labour supporters and 40 per cent of Liberal Democrats who said Mr Farage should seek a deal with their parties.

Among Ukip voters, 40 per cent said the eurosceptic party should go into coalition with Tories, against 12 per cent who would prefer a pact with Labour, 8 per cent with the Lib Dems and 35 per cent who said Mr Farage should reject any coalition deal.

Mr Farage told LBC: “If we get to a position where Ukip is able, because it’s got the numbers, to get the people of this country a referendum, we would do a deal - not just with the Conservatives, we’d do one with Labour if it came to that - if it meant we’d get that vote.”

‘Conservative votes closer to Ukip than Cameron’

Commenting on the survey findings that Tory voters are keener than supporters of other parties to see a coalition deal with Ukip, Mr Farage said: “What this poll shows you is that Conservative voters don’t particularly like the deal with the Lib Dems, which is hardly surprising.

“I think what it also tells us is that Conservative voters are recognising in big numbers that their party is not going to win a majority at the next election. That’s why the figure is as high as it is. That’s why it’s a much, much higher figure than anything we’ve seen over the course of the last 12 months.

“Most Conservative voters are closer to what Ukip stands for than what Mr Cameron stands for and that essentially has been a major problem for him.”

EU poll results

Some 41 per cent of those questioned in the poll said Britain would better leaving the EU, against 37 per cent who think its interests are best served by remaining a member. Among those questioned, 39 per cent said the UK was a better place to do business because it was an EU member, compared with 24 per cent who said membership made it a worse place to do business.

About 29 per cent said the UK was “less safe” as an EU member and 26 per cent “safer”.

EU membership was more popular among the young, with 18 to 24-year-olds agreeing by a margin of 49 per cent-26 per cent, and 25 to 39-year-olds by 39 per cent-34 per cent that Britain was better off in.

Exit from the EU was preferred by a margin of 43 per cent-37 per cent among 35 to 59-year-olds and by 53 per cent-32 per cent among over-60s.

Ukip said its membership has reached a record of more than 34,000 as 2,000 new members had joined so far this year.

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