He said ‘yes’! Farage agrees to debate Clegg on EU

He asked… and Nigel said yes. The Ukip leader and his party colleagues had whipped Westminster into a state of great suspense in the 24 hours between Nick Clegg’s phone-in on LBC and Nigel Farage’s own appearance on the station. And Farage took his time to say ‘yes’ to the Lib Dem leader’s challenge to a live debate on the EU ahead of the European elections. He said:

‘I nearly choked on my bacon roll when I heard Nick Clegg say he wanted to have a debate about the big European question because this was the guy three years ago advocating an in/out referendum who now says there shouldn’t be a referendum, but now wants a debate so he’s all over the place.

‘I’ve thought about this overnight and, do you know, the reason I got into politics – because I was working in the City, I was working in the commodities business – and I got involved in politics because I felt on this great question of who governs our country: our own Parliament, by the men and women we elect and send there, or the European Commission and the other institutions in Brussels? [I felt] that we weren’t having a proper talk about this.