UKIP will back Tory gov't if EU vote held in 2015: report
(LONDON) - Britain's UK Independence Party (UKIP) will support a minority Conservative government on the condition it holds a referendum on membership of the European Union in 2015, according to a Sunday newspaper.
Prime Minister David Cameron's centre-right Conservative party is neck-and-neck with the opposition Labour party, and neither may win enough seats in the May 7 election to govern alone, polls indicate.
UKIP has said in the past that it favoured a "confidence and supply" arrangement whereby it would support a government on a vote by vote basis.
But the Sunday Telegraph reported that UKIP leader Nigel Farage had set out clear plans for such an arrangement for the first time, in a book "The Purple Revolution" serialised in the newspaper.
"The terms of my deal with the Tories would be very precise and simple. I want a full and fair referendum to be held in 2015 to allow Britain to vote on being in or out of the European Union," Farage wrote.
The referendum's question should be something like "Do you wish to be a free, independent sovereign democracy?" Farage suggested, and he would demand agreement on the vote's timing, wording, voter eligibility and referendum conduct.
UKIP would be joined in supporting the Conservatives by Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party under the plan.
"UKIP would support a confidence and supply agreement with the government, whoever the government may be," a UKIP spokeswoman told AFP when asked about the report.
"They want to hold the feet to the fire of the elected representatives of this country."
Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU before holding a referendum on whether to leave the 28-member-state bloc in 2017.
The prospect of an earlier vote on the so-called "Brexit" has the potential to rattle investors and cause concern in Brussels.
Between 34 and 38 percent of people in England, Scotland and Wales believe Britain should leave the EU, compared to between 37 percent and 45 percent who say it should stay in the bloc, according to polls conducted in the first months of 2015.
As the general election nears, parties have begun gently sounding out potential alliances.
The surging Scottish National Party and the Green party have ruled out a deal with the Conservatives, leaving open the possibility of a potential rival left-leaning Labour-led alliance.
Poll analysis website electionforecast predicts that the Conservative party will win 288 seats -- and may be left short of the 326 needed for a majority even if supported by the DUP, UKIP, and current coalition partners the Liberal Democrats.