Tory campaign chief calls for electoral pact with Ukip Michael Fabricant, a Tory vice-chairman, who said a deal with Ukip could win the party 20 to 40 marginal seats. Photograph: Julian Makey/Rex Features A Tory campaign chief has called for an electoral pact with Ukip to avoid splitting the rightwing vote at the next general election. Michael Fabricant, a party vice-chairman, suggested the Tory party could commit to a straight in/out referendum on UK membership of the EU or guarantee such a poll if Ukip promised not to stand against Tory candidates in 2015. He argued such a deal could give the Tories 20 to 40 additional marginal seats, concluding: "These steps have to be taken to stop the continued haemorrhage of Conservative votes." Fabricant told Sky News: "There is not going to be any discussion for a good 24 months yet with Ukip, but I do think there needs to be a discussion in the Conservative party." Asked what the prime minister made of his intervention on the topic, the MP replied: "I hope that he will simply consider it and look at that as part of a number of different strategies that he will be considering." He added: "I'm seeing him tonight, so maybe he will tell me." The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, fired back on Twitter, saying there would be "no deals with the Tories: it's war." Farage said over the weekend that his party would abandon its pledge not to stand against Eurosceptic Tory MPs after Cameron refused to retract comments describing Ukip members as mostly "closet racists." Asked at Monday's lobby briefing whether Cameron believed Ukip was a party of closet racists, the prime minister's spokesman said: "I think political colleagues have been making clear he stands by the comments he made in 2006." In another tweet, Farage referred to the controversy over children being removed from a foster couple in South Yorkshire because of their Ukip membership, saying: "Cameron's comments over the Rotherham case mean a deal's simply not possible." He said Ukip was bigger than the sum of its views on Europe. The Fabricant deal seems to be based on buying me off. Ukip is bigger than that. Cameron has given his backing to a referendum on the EU but has ruled out a straight in/out question, despite growing pressure from hardline Tory backbenchers. The influential Eurosceptic backbencher Mark Pritchard stepped up referendum calls over the weekend, saying legislation for a vote should be introduced before the end of the parliament. But Cameron received unexpected support from the Tory London mayor, Boris Johnson, who, during a trade mission to India, spoke out against holding a referendum on whether the UK should remain part of the European Union as it currently exists. Fabricant makes the case for a pact with Ukip in a 17-page discussion paper that notes a "direct correlation between the European question and the increase in Ukip support" and suggests it is now "time to actively consider whether a rapprochement might be possible." In his report, Fabricant states: "At present, Ukip does not pose a threat in any single Westminster parliamentary seat: however, it presents a far more troubling threat to the Conservative party." At the 2010 election, a Ukip vote share of just 3-4% cost victory in between 20 to 40 seats, he suggested, "a major contributory factor to the Conservatives failing to win an overall majority." That showed MPs were wrong to suggest Ukip was a "one-trick pony" that only performed well at elections to the European parliament, he said. "With a Ukip leader in Nigel Farage, who is a former Thatcherite, who sounds like a Conservative, who looks like a Conservative, and in other circumstances probably would be a Conservative, some of the arguments being advanced here do have real relevance and must be addressed," he said. The party should conduct private polling to clarify how much of the marked increase in Ukip support was due to defections of previous Tory supporters, he said, though it would probably make "disturbing reading." Corby, where Ukip polled 14.3% of the vote as Labour took back the seat vacated by the Tory Louise Mensch, was a stark signal of "the real support that Ukip can harness," he said. In the 2010 general election, Ukip did not stand in the seat, yet since gained 14.3% of the vote just two years on. Farage told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the idea that Ukip would "pack up its tents and go home" if there was a referendum on Europe was wide of the mark. "That isn't going to happen," he said. We are a different political party with our own manifesto, but we do recognise this question of whether we're governed by Brussels or not is key. Tim Montgomerie, on the Conservativehome blog, said a pact with Ukip would "certainly be popular with the Tory grassroots," pointing to a poll conducted by the Conservative-supporting website in June that found that 60% of Conservative members were positive towards the idea of such an arrangement. Montgomerie called on Cameron to use his forthcoming speech on Europe to make a "bankable commitment" to hold an in/out referendum. This would allow the Conservative party to secure its base "amongst centre-right, Eurosceptic voters" and then focus on reaching out to floating voters more interested in "bread-and-butter issues" such as the cost of living and the NHS. In an article for the Times that stayed clear of the debate on a pact with Ukip, Montgomerie wrote: "Anything less than an in/out vote won't remove the dagger from the Tory throat that is known as Ukip. The Rotherham adoption row has catapulted Ukip to a new level in British politics. Both Mr Cameron and Ed Miliband have had to acknowledge that it is a mainstream party. It's certainly more than a Eurosceptic phenomenon and there is no silver bullet to stop it dividing the centre-right vote. Nonetheless, an in/out vote is the best way of putting a lid on its rise. A strong Ukip means a divided centre right in British politics and that would give Labour a structural advantage not just at the next election but for the foreseeable future.