UK deputy PM and anti-EU rival trade barbs in debate
Nigel Farage - Nick Clegg
(LONDON) - Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg locked horns with the leader of the country's most anti-EU party on Wednesday in the first of two face-to-face debates ahead of forthcoming European Parliament elections.
Clegg, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, argued that Britain was "better off in Europe -- richer, stronger, safer", but UK Independence Party (UKIP) head Nigel Farage countered that the European Union was no longer fit to face the challenges of the modern economy, with an early poll showing the British public backed his stance.
Farage, who wants to pull Britain out of the EU, and Clegg will meet again for another debate on April 2.
Farage's party is expected to make large gains in the May 22 elections, while Clegg's is expected to fare badly.
The deputy prime minister said he wanted "a Britain that leads in the world by standing tall in our own European backyard, a Britain prepared to work with other countries on the things we can't possibly sort out on our own.
"We are better off in Europe -- richer, stronger, safer -- and that's why I will fight to keep us in, for the sake of jobs, for the sake of our clout in the world, for the sake of Britain," he added.
He claimed the country's National Health Service (NHS) would "collapse" without the influx of foreign workers, adding: "People who come to our country, they create wealth, they pay taxes, they help sustain our NHS."
Farage accused Clegg of helping to create a "total open door to 485 million people from Europe, many of them from poor countries".
He added: "That is the issue that has woken people up, that by being a member of the European Union we have lost the ability to govern our country and to control our borders."
Farage said Britain had "sold his birthright" by handing powers to the EU, and vowed to act to reclaim control of lawmaking from Brussels. But he insisted he wanted to keep close ties with the continent.
- 'Crumbling EU' -
"This debate is between a tired status quo defending a crumbling EU that frankly isn't working anymore, and a fresh approach that says let's be friendly with Europe, let's trade with Europe, but let's not be governed by their institutions," he said.
But he controversially suggested that the EU had "blood on its hands" over Ukraine, claiming that its desire to create an "empire" had given Ukrainians false hope of being able to counter Russia's influence.
Commentators largely agreed that Farage had dominated the early rounds of the hour-long debate, hosted by London radio station LBC, but that Clegg had hit back later on.
A YouGov poll of 1,003 people published immediately after hostilities ceased showed that 57 percent thought Farage had performed better, compared to 36 percent for Clegg.
Recent polls show UKIP has moved ahead of the Lib Dems as Britain's third-most-popular political party.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, wants to renegotiate London's relationship with Brussels and stage an in-or-out referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017 if he remains prime minister after next year's general election.
He is under pressure form the right wing of his party to counter the threat posed by Farage's party.
The Lib Dems are defending 12 of Britain's 73 seats in May's vote, while UKIP has nine. At the last European elections in 2009, UKIP came second and the Lib Dems fourth.
UKIP does not however have a single seat in the British parliament.