The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Tories are an English party chasing Ukip votes, says Clegg
Lib Dem leader says Conservatives do not represent UK
The Conservatives are no longer a party for the whole of the UK and have “basically mutated into an English party chasing Ukip votes in southern England”, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has claimed.
The Liberal Democrat leader criticised the party he was in coalition with, arguing that David Cameron has “given up even pretending to seek a mandate as Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom”.
The Conservative leader has said he will try to form a government if his party wins just one more seat than Labour in today’s General Election.
But with the Tories uncertain to see off the challenge of the SNP in the one Scottish constituency they won in 2010, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has insisted the next government must represent all of the UK and cannot “ignore” Scottish voices if it is to be considered legitimate.
As well as accusing the Conservatives of effectively giving up on Scotland, Mr Clegg hit out at Ms Sturgeon’s party, claiming a large block of SNP MPs at Westminster would seek to use “every smidgeon of grievance that they can muster in the next parliament to mount the case for a second referendum”.
Mr Clegg made the comments as he visited a nursery in Bearsden, outside Glasgow, with East Dunbartonshire candidate Jo Swinson and Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie.
He insisted again he would not do any coalition deals that would rely on support from the SNP or Nigel Farage’s Ukip, saying: “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.”
He said: “I can’t be clearer – no pacts, no deals, no arrangements with either Ukip or the SNP.”
Mr Clegg added: “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,” he said.
“It is behaving in this election campaign as something tantamount to an English Conservative Party.”
No pacts, no deals. . . with either Ukip or the SNP. NICK CLEGG