THE UNITED Kingdom election should result in a hung House of Commons parliament to force a referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has declared.
Party leader Lord Pearson, speaking at the party’s one-day conference in Milton Keynes yesterday, said it would “be an absolute disaster” if Conservative party leader David Cameron won power and a majority in the election expected in May.
“He has ruled out any form of a referendum on EU membership. That means five more years of ever deeper integration.
“Even if we don’t win seats, I want us to contribute to a hung parliament,” said Lord Pearson, who became leader last November.
He urged his party supporters not to put up candidates against Eurosceptic candidates, though he rejected the views held in many quarters that the Conservative party is in its most Eurosceptic frame of mind for decades.
“We must remember our prime objective, which is to get our country out of the EU. We must do all that we can to get people into the House of Commons who will fight for our freedom.
“If we are unlikely to win the seat, we must not stand against them. It would put our party before our country,” he said.
UKIP came second in the European Parliament elections last year under proportional representation, though its chances of winning House of Commons seats are hampered by the first-past-the-post system used in that election.
It won just 2 per cent of the vote in the 2005 general election.
Former party leader Nigel Farage, who is standing against the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, even though neither Labour nor the Conservatives are standing in the constituency, is the party’s best hope.
UKIP MPs, said Lord Pearson, would insist that the next British government would “give the British people the referendum that they were promised”.
He added that Conservative pledges that they would bring back powers over social and labour laws were “complete rubbish”.
