Farage sets out price of deal with Cameron after election
NIGEL Farage is prepared to do a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland to support David Cameron, but only in return for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership in 2015.
Writing in his new book “The Purple Revolution”, published tomorrow, the Ukip leader rules out a formal coalition with the Tories. However, he says: “I see a Tory, Ukip, DUP three-way deal as a possible scenario.”
Farage believes that the DUP has moved on from sectarianism and shares Ukip’s euroscepticism. Consequently the two parties “have developed a mutual respect for each other”, he says.
Conservative chief whip Michael Gove is another person that Farage believes he could do a deal with. This prompted Labour’s Ed Balls to comment that a deal between Ukip and the Conservatives “is probably happening in [Gove’s] kitchen.”
In a television interview yesterday, chancellor George Osborne said the idea of deal with Ukip was “total nonsense”, but declined to categorically rule out the possibility.
Responding, Douglas Alexander, chair of Labour’s general election campaign, commented: “Nigel Farage wants a Tory government. Ukip is ready to prop up a Tory government and support their plan to take spending levels back to the 1930s when we didn’t have a health service. “
A Tory spokesman said: “We are going all out for a majority and only the Conservatives can win a majority.”