Tories are ‘pale Ukip imitation’, says Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg at Westerton Nursery in Bearsden. Picture: John Devlin

NICK Clegg has said the Conservatives have “mutated into a pale imitation” of Nigel Farage’s Ukip, as he claimed the Liberal Democrats were now the main party that cared about the “integrity” of the Union.

Mr Clegg suggested his party’s coalition partners had abandoned the Unionist cause and that David Cameron led what was now effectively an English nationalist party chasing votes from supporters of Mr Farage south of the border.

The Deputy Prime Minister stated that Mr Cameron has “given up even pretending to seek a mandate as Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom” and had the same “red line” as Ukip in wanting an in-out vote on EU membership.

He also said the SNP was on “manoeuvres” and would stoke up any “smidgen of grievance that they can muster” to force a second referendum at Westminster if the party make sweeping gains in tomorrow’s election.

The Deputy Prime Minister launched the scathing attacks on the Conservatives and SNP as he visited a nursery in Bearsden, outside Glasgow, with East Dunbartonshire candidate Jo Swinson and Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie.

Mr Clegg insisted that there was no prospect of any pacts between the Lib Dems and the SNP in the event of a hung parliament and said that the SNP was different to other parties because it wanted to “break up the Union”.

He said that there was “no meeting point” for the Lib Dems with parties such as the SNP and Ukip as he stated that he would never make deals with them.

Mr Clegg said: “One party wants to break up one union we believe in, the European Union, the other party wants to break up another union we believe in, the United Kingdom.”

Nick Clegg, Jo Swinson and Willie Rennie at Westerton Nursery, Bearsden. Picture: John Devlin

The Deputy Prime Minister attacked the party he was in coalition with for five years that had worked closely with in last year’s referendum campaign.

He argued that voting for the Lib Dems is the “best way” to ensure the next government would be one for the whole of the UK, saying: “The Conservative Party is now not even pretending to be a party for the whole UK, the Conservative Party has basically mutated into an English party chasing Ukip votes in southern England.

“It has got barely any representation in Scotland and is behaving in this election campaign as something tantamount to an English Conservative Party.