Are the Lib Dems now closer to UKIP than the Tories and Labour?

I know, I know. Nick Clegg wants an EU superstate and for Britain to abandon the pound sterling and adopt the euro. Lord Pearson wants Britain to totally and utterly withdraw from the European Union. But could it be that, despite the widespread support for the notion that UKIP are an offshoot of the Tories, it is in fact the Liberals that UKIP are closest to?

I say this because Nick Clegg seems to be strongly pushing the fact that he wants a referendum on EU membership. Now I am not naive: I'm fully aware that the Lib Dems abstained from a vote on the Lisbon Treaty in the House of Commons and failed to support UKIP's Bill in the House of Lords for the very referendum on membership that Clegg is now advocating.

But the fact is that what Clegg is offering is far closer to what UKIP want than Cameron or Brown are offering. Of course Clegg and the Liberal Democrats would stand diametrically opposed to UKIP during the referendum campaign as a rabidly pro-EU Party. But at least Clegg is offering that we get to that point at all, which is rather more than what Brown or Cameron are prepared to commit to.

It may not be a nice thought for those Tories who view their Party as somehow being the natural home for UKIP supporters, but it may now be the Liberal Democrats who, in a roundabout way, have more to offer those thinking of voting UKIP than the Tories themselves.

The people must have their say on the issue of Britain's EU membership. At least the Lib Dems appear to want to have the debate at all.