Andrew Sparrow speaks to the Ukip leader about electoral pacts, 'nutters', banning the burqa and Europe
Nigel Farage says Ukip could form an electoral pact with the Conservatives at the next election if David Cameron were to promise a referendum on membership of the EU. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
"This is the perfect environment if you are Nigel Farage," Nick Clegg told the Guardian at the end of last week. "The people who are trying to exploit the politics of grievance and blame, they believe they have got the wind in their sails."
By coincidence, I was interviewing Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip) on Friday and at that point he didn't seem to have the wind in his sails.
It was a few hours after the announcement of the result in the Feltham and Heston byelection and, despite speculation that Ukip could overtake the Lib Dems, Clegg's party hung on to third place. But, as Farage talked about the broader political picture, he was upbeat about Ukip's chances of tugging Britain out of the EU. Here are the key points from our conversation.
• Farage said Ukip could form an electoral pact with theConservatives at the next election if David Cameron were to promise a referendum on membership of the European Union.There was "every chance of forcing David Cameron into giving us a referendum", he said. Whether or not to propose an electoral pact with the Conservatives in 2015 would be a "huge decision" for the party, he said. But he had offered the Tories a pact before the 2010 election, he said.
• He renewed his call for 20% of teachers to be sacked. "There's no doubt there are too many people in the teaching profession who have academic achievements and qualifications [that mean] frankly they shouldn't be in that position," he said.
• He signalled that he was going to ditch Ukip's policy of banning the burqa. At the last election Ukip was in favour of banning the burqa in public buildings and some private buildings. But Farage, who was not party leader at the 2010 election, said this was a policy he had inherited. It was being reviewed, he said. He was "dubious" about using legislation in this area. "I'm not really in favour of banning the burqa," he said.
• He said that he made a mistake when he accused Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the EU, of having "all the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk" in a speech in the European parliament. "Hands up, I got the tone of that wrong," Farage said.
• He suggested that Ukip still had a problem with "nutters" among its members. In the past he has used this term and talked about Ukip having a disproportionate number among its members when it launched as a new party. Asked if this was still a problem, he said: "Less than it was."
• He claimed Ukip was a "very globalist party". He explained: "We are the party saying we've got to stop being so small-minded and thinking that the beginning and end of the economic world is Europe. It jolly well isn't."
Most commentators don't take Ukip particularly seriously because, although they do well in European elections, where they scoop up the anti-European protest vote, they are irrelevant at Westminster because they have never come close to winning a seat in the House of Commons. But earlier this year the Labour magazine Progress speculated aboutFarage winning enough seats to hold the balance of power after the 2015 election.
Absurd fantasy, or a plausible scenario? In a 30-minute interview at Europe House, the old Conservative party headquarters which is now (ironically) the European parliament and commission's London HQ, we covered this and much else. You can decide for yourself.
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