FRANKLY FARAGE

Exclusive extracts from his new memoir

his is the most unpredictable election for a hundred years. Ukip has upset the political apple cart, and I am constantly being asked how many seats we can win in May. My public answer mirrors my private view: I just don’t know, and no one else has a clue either.

Are we going to win a handful of seats? Yes. Could we surprise everyone, including ourselves? Yes. Are we in with a sporting chance of getting enough seats to make a difference? Perhaps. But from where I am sitting now, the likelihood of Britain waking up to something that resembles a loose three-party coalition, rather than a twoparty one, is pretty high.

Depending on how many seats Ukip gets, I could see the Tories, Ukip and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) doing some kind of deal. I do not foresee a Labour victory, because their campaign is in too much trouble in Scotland and the north of England. Labour simply has no clear message. If you ask a voter what the Labour Party stands for, you would struggle to get an answer. It has little obvious purpose and its policies, as far as one can identify them, are not that far from those of the Conservatives.

The Labour Party has lost so much ground over the past 10 years. Under the Blair project, the party had some incredibly talented people: Blair himself, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson were, and are, extraordinarily impressive politicians. Who does Labour have now? Some political consultant bloke from Washington called David Axelrod as their “strategic adviser”. For sure, he oversaw the presidential campaign that got Barack Obama into the White House, even though he has turned out to be a very poor and ineffective president.

As for the trade unions that fund Labour, they have also changed their identity: now they are in favour of corporatism and supporting big government, taking choices and control away from their members. They support open-door immigration and endorse the whole EU project. It seems to matter little to them that one of the consequences of uncontrolled immigration is that the mass of cheap foreign labour on our shores undercuts local wages for British workers.

Trade unions have a proud history of acting for the interests of their members, of championing employee rights on issues such as pay and fairness. Do they do so now? In my view, only the late Bob Crow, the leader of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, stood up for the interests of the working man.

As for the Liberal Democrats, their vote will collapse. Nick Clegg will be lucky to keep his Sheffield seat, and the party as a whole will be lucky to keep a third of the 57 seats they won in 2010. Then they bagged 23 per cent of the vote. They won’t get anywhere near that this time round. (It is an extraordinary irony that the party that supports the electoral system of proportional representation has benefited from the British first-past-the-post system.) In addition, David Cameron has about 100 rebellious Tory backbenchers who would not want another deal with the Liberal Democrats. Those backbenchers were on our side on a number of issues, both foreign and domestic. And that same Tory awkward squad are similarly Eurosceptic and against an open-door immigration policy. The Greens will get nothing, thank goodness. I think that the Tories will be the biggest party when we wake up on Friday May 8. But I suspect they will be damaged because they have lost so much of the blue- collar vote and are just banking on the ageing middle classes to back them, therefore a Tory majority, I believe, is improbable. So, the arithmetic says that they will need the support of two other parties to get the numbers up and ensure, for example, that they can get their Budget through.

That is why I see a Tory/Ukip/DUP three-way deal as a possible scenario. Ukip and the Northern Irish would take a similar role to that of the Liberal Democrats now. It will be complicated, but the DUP have eight seats and that figure is likely to rise after May 7. Now the party has moved on from its sectarian approach to issues, we have developed a mutual respect for each other. And, like Ukip, the DUP has a Eurosceptic position.

I suspect the first obstacle to doing a deal with Ukip for the Tories will be pride. They have a long history of being perfectly beastly about Ukip. When Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party chairman – I cannot keep a straight face when I hear his name and title – said that they would never do a deal with us, he just didn’t seem to realise that it doesn’t work like that. It is all about the numbers. Every government needs to know that they have enough support to get their Budget passed.

If it were between a deal with me and the DUP or a deal with the Liberal Democrats, I know which way I would go if I was Cameron.

If the numbers work as I think, there would be two scenarios. First, would Ukip wish to form a formal coalition with the Tories? The answer is no. We are radicals; we want real change to help Britain get back self-governance and self-confidence.

There are many other areas where we can make a contribution. But I have no desire to swap everything that we have fought for for the short-term privilege of a ministerial car. I would look to do a deal where we would back key votes for them – such as the Budget – but in return for very specific criteria on an EU referendum.

This year, 2015, is just the beginning of the journey for Ukip. I am already thinking of 2020. I genuinely believe that Ukip can be a very major party in that election, but not if our voters think we have sold out. I have absolutely no desire to swap the chance to get Britain out of the EU for some grandee position in government. I don’t want a seat in Cabinet or a ministerial title. I have never even had a business card with a title on it, because I’ve never felt the need for a title.

I know whether I am doing well or badly and I don’t need that kind of recognition. And apart from anything else, most of the people sitting around that Cabinet table are ghastly. I do not want to be with them and I am sure they feel the same way about me. I have only been through the doors of No 10 once, when I was invited there in the Nineties – and once is enough.

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 Britons to vote on being in or out of the European Union. There would be no wiggle room for ‘‘renegotiation’’ somewhere down the line. These are my criteria:

Timing is key. The EU is facing an existential crisis and, given that it only takes a few weeks to launch and organise a referendum, it should be held in 2015.

The wording of the question that will be put to voters. ‘‘Do you wish to be a free, independent sovereign democracy?’’ This would be a starting point. The wording matters hugely. You only have to look at the wording of the referendum question in the Scottish independence vote to see that the ‘‘yes’’ side was initially conceded to Alex Salmond. In 1975, the referendum question – ‘‘Do you think Britain should stay in the European Community?’’ – afforded a great deal of wiggle room. Just over 67 per cent said yes.

Eligibility. Who gets to vote? It is my strong belief that the four million EU citizens living in the UK without British passports should not be allowed to do so. And yes, that includes my German wife. They are eligible to vote in European elections, but they should not have the right to decide on Britain’s future in the EU. It may be that that would require us to do battle with the European Court of Justice – but so be it.

Information and funding. I saw how the Irish referendums were conducted. There were large amounts of literature disseminated that purported to be legitimate campaigning. I would want strict spending limits so that neither side is able to outspend the other – no shenanigans. For me to play ball with Cameron, I would also want an ombudsman to police coverage of the referendum – both the campaigning and the day itself – to make sure that there was even coverage from all sides (even though the BBC will hate it). If David Cameron agrees to these terms, provided that the Conservatives show that they are being responsible about the Budget and that they are committed to deficit reduction, there is no question that Ukip would not do a deal.

It is difficult to see at this point with whom we could have a conversation among the Tories – a vast number of them hate us and I dislike them. But there are a few: for example, I have always been friends with Michael Gove, who is now Tory chief whip. Most of the Tories are so negative, but he has always been the most civil. I would trust him across the table.

None of us – the British voter, the media luvvie, the policy wonk or the party leader – know what May 8 2015 is going to look like. I think, however, that the outcome of the election it will reveal new confirmation of what we have all seen during the past 18 months – a convulsion in British politics.

The past 18 months have changed my life: from the back operation that saved me from becoming disabled to winning the European elections in May 2014 and then victory in the two by-elections. This is our time. Þ