A Liberal Democrat attack website has caused celebrations on the political right after it suggested the Conservatives form a coalition with UKIP and the DUP. The BLUKIP page says Cameron may want Farage as Deputy Prime Minister and Douglas Carswell as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Other ministers include DUP MP Ian Paisley as Secretary of State for Welfare Reduction, and Tory Eurosceptic Peter Bone as Minister For Europe; cabinet members would include John Redwood (Justice), Jacob Rees-Mogg (Transport) and DUP leader Peter Robinson (Foreign Secretary). They also suggest a series of policies that would upset the left, such as bringing back the death penalty.
One senior UKIP official said: “In what way is this an insult? This is the best cabinet anyone has proposed in years. If this was the outcome of the election most right thinking people would jump for joy.
“The Liberal Democrats say their role is to force the Conservatives to do the right thing. I would suggest Nigel Farage and Ian Paisley would do a far better job of that. Nick Clegg wants the Tories to stay as a wishy-washy pro-European nightmare, I think it’s fair to say UKIP and the DUP would take a different view.”
The site ‘warns’: “David Cameron and Ed Miliband won’t win this election outright. That means that someone else will hold the balance of power on 8 May. That could be BLUKIP – a bloc of right wingers from UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP. There is a very real danger that Nigel Farage and his friends could hold David Cameron to ransom.”
On current polling the three parties together would still fall short of enough seats to form a government, but this is based on uniform swings. The winning group would need 326 seats, last time the Conservatives scored 306. If the party was able to hold that number they would be boosted by nine expected DUP members, meaning UKIP would need at least ten seats to hold the balance of power.
The DUP have already committed to a confidence and supply deal with “whoever offers the best deal for Northern Ireland”, but they privately admit they expect this to be the Conservatives. UKIP have also said they intend to work closely with the DUP after the election.