- Farage says Britain would never opt to join the European Union today
- Clegg insists if it sounds too good to be true, it is and Ukip peddle a 'con'
- But row has erupted after Farage said he 'admires' Russian President Putin
- MailOnline poll found 38% of people think Farage is a 'danger to Britain'
- YouGov: Farage 68%, Clegg 27% - ICM: Farage 69, Clegg 31%
Nigel Farage was tonight accused of being 'dangerous' after admitting he 'admires' Russian President Vladimir Putin and defending Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Two snap polls showed the Ukip leader easily triumphed in the second live TV debate with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, in which he urged voters to join a 'People's Army' to topple the political establishment in Brussels.
But Mr Farage was forced on to the defensive after claiming Assad did not use chemical weapons against the Syrian people.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Lib Dem Nick Clegg traded blows during a tetchy hour-long debate on Europe
The debate is being broadcast live on BBC2 in front of a specially selected studio audience
Mr Clegg condemned Mr Farage as 'dangerous' and accused him of 'conning' the British people.
Mr Clegg challenged Mr Farage to the debates ahead of elections to the European Parliament in May 22. Tonight they clashed on immigration, laws, jobs and European foreign policy.
In a rallying cry to Eurosceptics, Mr Farage urged voters to join his 'People's Army' to leave Brussels, warning without change the EU would end 'very unpleasantly'.
He said: 'This is our country. It is a very good country. It is a country that developed the principle of parliamentary democracy. it has been given away through a whole series of lies and deceit.
'Let's take back control of our our borders. Let's stop giving £55million a day as a membership fee of a club we don't need to be part of.
'Let's free ourselves up. I know the people are behind this. Come and join the People's Army. Let's topple the establishment that led use into this mess.'
Mr Farage went on: 'I said yes to these debates. I thought you would honestly make the pro-EU case. By saying 7% of our laws are made in Brussels, you are wilfully lying to the British people about the extent to which we have given away control of our country and our democracy and I'm really shocked and surprised that you would try and do that.'
Mr Clegg countered: 'I don't think in a debate like this, Nigel Farage, you should start making things up to make a point.'
Two snap polls carried out soon after the hour-long debate finished showed Mr Farage won easily
Mr Farage urged voters to join his 'People's Army' to help 'topple' the European establishment
Mr Farage warned that the EU would break up 'very unpleasantly' if it did not end voluntarily.
He said: 'I want the EU to end, but I want it to end democratically. If it doesn't end democratically, I'm afraid it will end very unpleasantly.
'We are already in some countries beginning to see the rise of worrying political extremism. There's a neo-Nazi party in Greece that looks certain to win seats at the European Parliament.
'We see in Madrid, we see in Athens very large protests, tens of thousands of people, a lot of violence.
'I want the EU to end, but I want it to
end democratically. If it doesn't end democratically, I'm afraid it will
end very unpleasantly'
Ukip leader Nigel Farage
'If you take away from people their ability through the ballot box to change their future because they have given away control of everything to somebody else, I'm afraid they tend to resort to unpleasant means.'
Some of the most heated debate focused on Mr Farage's views on international politics.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of tonight's debate, the Ukip leader said again defended his admiration of Putin for blocking international action against Damascus.
He said: 'I did admire what he’d done over Syria. We were about to go to war in Syria because poison gas, sarin gas, had been used and everybody in London and Washington and Brussels assumed it had been used by Assad.
'And Putin said: "Hang on a second, don’t be so sure". It turns out it is more than likely it was the rebels that used the gas. If Putin hadn’t intervened we would now be at war in Syria.'
In recent days Mr Farage has spoken up in defence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
The two men clashed on immigration, jobs, trade and foreign policy
BEST (AND WORST) OF THE JOKES
NICK CLEGG
ON CONSPIRACIES: 'The problem with people like Nigel Farage is they swing at windmills. They see conspiracies everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if Nigel Farage soon tells us that the moon landing was a fake, that Barack Obama is not American, that Elvis is not dead.'
ON UKIP CLAIM THAT 485MILLION PEOPLE COULD COME TO BRITAIN: 'It is as silly as me saying that five million people living in Scotland might all move to Orpington next Tuesday. It is not going to happen.'
ON PUTIN: 'If I'm the leader of the party of in, he's the leader of the party of Putin'
As the debate got under way on BBC 2 tonight, the gloves came off with the two leaders trading blows on foreign policy and jobs.
Mr Clegg said there were 200 people being killed in Syria every day 'and Nigel Farage says he admires Vladimir Putin as if it is a game'.
He said Putin could 'pick up the phone' and order an end to the bloodshed in Syria, but chose not to.
'This isn't some sort of pub bar discussion, this is a serious issue about how we stop the slaughter, the displacement of millions of people, women and children being sexually abused, terrible violence on an unimaginable scale and all Nigel Farage can say is that he (Putin) has played it brilliantly.'
But Mr Farage insisted he did not want to be part of a European army or foreign policy.
He said: 'This country has had enough of getting into endless foreign wars.'
The Ukip leader blamed the clamour for Ukraine to join the EU for the uprising from protesters in Kiev.
'This is something that has been seen by Putin to be a deeply provocative act. We have given false hope to those western Ukrainians. And did you see them with their EU flags and their banners?
'They actually toppled a democratically elected leader. Yes, I know Ukraine's corrupt, I know it wasn't perfect, but they toppled a leader and I do not want to be part of an emerging, expansionist EU foreign policy. I think it will be a danger to peace.'
Mr Clegg accused Mr Farage of trying to turn the clock back to a 19th century bygone age which doesn't exist any more
In the opening exchanges, Mr Farage insisted that if Britain was considering whether to join the EU today, voters would reject the idea.
But Mr Clegg shot back: 'If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.. It is a dangerous con, because the modern world has changed. Our economies are intertwined with each other.'
Mr
Farage said Britain found itself today in a 'political union, we find
ourselves with most of our laws being made somewhere else'.
The Ukip leader said there was a 'settled majority' of the public that did not want to be part of a political union, but they were being blocked by a "career political class and their friends in big business'.
Mr Clegg brandished a Ukip leader featuring a native American which stated: 'I used to ignore immigration, now I live on a reservation'
On immigration, Mr Clegg brandished a Ukip leaflet featuring a native American which stated: 'I used to ignore about immigration. Now I live on a reservation.'
Mr Farage tried to insist he did not recognise the large, full-colour pamphlet, but Mr Clegg said: 'What are you going to say next? That you’re Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull?'
'It has left the white working class, effectively, as an underclass and that, I think, is a disaster'
Nigel Farage on immigration
However, the Ukip leader argued that Europe's open door policy meant that 485million people were able to move to Britain.
He pointed to a MigrationWatch report which suggested 130,000 immigrants could come into the UK from the EU every year.
Mr Farage added: 'I fear there is going to be a very big migratory wave from the Mediterranean.'
He warned that immigration has 'left the white working class, effectively, as an underclass and that, I think, is a disaster'.
But Mr Clegg dismissed it as 'more dangerous scaremongering'.
Immigration, regulations and EU expansion are expected to be among the subjects raised by the studio audience
In the first clash last week on LBC radio and Sky News, immigration dominated with the two men trading detailed facts and figures.
A snap poll minutes after the debate showed 57 per cent thought Mr Farage had won, while only 36 per backed Mr Clegg.
However, a ComRes survey for MailOnline yesterday found 38 per cent think Mr Farage poses a ‘danger to Britain’ and ‘a bit sleazy’ while Mr Clegg is viewed as out of his depth.
Last week’s debate was dominated by rows over the use of statistics, with Mr Farage claiming 75 per cent of Britain’s laws come from Brussels and Mr Clegg insisting the figure was more like 7 per cent.
However, just 18 per cent of people said Mr Clegg 'tells the truth’ while 25 per cent said the same of Mr Farage.
BRITAIN WILL JOIN EURO ON DAY, SAYS HESELTINE IN SWIPE AT UKIP
Britain will eventually join the euro, former Tory Cabinet minister Lord Heseltine has claimed.
The Conservative grandee who still advises David Cameron said the UK always resists European 'ventures' but ends up taking part.
He also took a swipe at Ukip, claiming it has a 'racist undertone' which echoes Oswald Mosely in the 1920s.
In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, Lord Hesletin was asked if the UK would join the euro.
He replied: 'Oh yes, one day, one day. We have resisted all these European ventures in my life. We tried to keep out in Messina in 1955 [the conference that led to the creation of the European Economic Community].
'That was a very bad decision. Then we joined on terms which were not to our liking but were the best we could get.'
On Ukip he added: 'The racial overtones that are within the Ukip movement have got the same motivation [and] psychological impact as Mosley in the Twenties and Thirties, as Powell in the Sixties, Le Pen in France, the hard right in Holland and in Germany. It’s all the same stuff.
'There is a racist undertone, there’s no question about it.'
Mr Farage was forced to repeatedly defend his remarks about President Putin which have dominated the headlines since their first debate.
‘Compared with the kids who run foreign policy in this country I have got more respect for him than our lot,’ Mr Farage said this week.
Asked in the GQ interview which current world leader he admired most, Mr Farage replied: ‘As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin. The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant.’
However, Mr Clegg has condemned the comments as ‘extreme’ and ‘utterly grotesque’, accusing President Putin of being ‘the chief sponsor and protector of one of the most brutal dictators on the face of the planet, President Assad’ in Syria.
At a press conference this week, the Deputy Prime Minister said: ‘This isn't a game. This is thousands upon thousands of people being killed and brutalised and murdered and chased from their homes who we are now taking into our country.
‘Women and children who have been sexually abused, who have been physically abused, and we are thankfully acting in a generous-hearted way to provide them refuge.
‘And he admires the man who has allowed, more than almost any other world leaders, that to happen?
‘I just think if your hatred of all things to do with the European Union leads to such a morally perverse conclusion - that you admire the one leader in the world who could have reined in President Assad - it really shows quite how extreme his views have become.’
In an apparent admission that his comments on Putin have left him exposed, Mr Farage today said he expected the issue to dominate tonight.
He told the BBC: 'They’re going to have a go at me over Putin because I’ve been wildly misquoted over that. I was asked a couple of months ago which world leader did I admire and I said Vladimir Putin as an operator, particularly the way he managed to stop the West getting militarily involved in Syria, but I don’t like him, I wouldn’t want to live there and I don’t like him as a human being. But I’m sure there will be a ding-dong over that.'
Ahead of tonight's debate, both parties have claimed surges in their membership.
The Lib Dems say they have 44,000 members, up 500 this year but still down a third on the 65,000-plus levels it enjoyed before joining the Conservatives in coalition government in 2010.
At the same time Ukip has seen its membership soar, from 20,000 at the end of 2012 to 35,000 at the weekend.
Mr Farage has set his sights on overtaking the Lib Dems in terms of membership by the 2015 general elections.
GODFREY 'BONG BONGO' BLOOM ATTACKS 'SALESMAN' FARAGE
Ex-Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom
Nigel Farage is just a good 'salesman' who cannot lead Ukip properly, his former flatmate Godfrey Bloom has claimed.
The ex-Ukip MEP, who was forced to quit after upstaging his leader at the party's conference last year, suggested Mr Farage had been in the job for too long.
'Nigel has been doing it for twenty years, I think perhaps one might argue that's too long,' Mr Bloom told the Telegraph.
He said Mr Farage is a 'charismatic' and 'articulate' salesman, but not a good 'managing director or chairman of the board'.
He suggested there were 'bright young people' in the party, who were being blocked by Mr Farage.
Mr Bloom caused a storm when he complained about foreign aid money being sent to 'Bongo Bongo Land', but was backed by Mr Farage.
However his comments calling a room of women 'sluts' on the day Mr Farage delivered his keynote conference speech led to him resigning to sit as an independent MEP.
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