Almost a Third of British Conservative Voters Favor Eurosceptic Coalition

Almost a third of Britain's Conservative voters favor a coalition with the eurosceptic UK Independence party if their party fails to win the 2015 election outright, a survey showed on Friday.

Pollsters TNS UK found that 30 percent of Conservative Party voters would support their party going into coalition with UKIP, which topped polls in the European Parliament elections in May, were Prime Minister David Cameron not to win an outright majority.

This compared to 31 percent who would back a repeat of the current coalition with the Liberal Democrat party, formed after the 2010 general election resulted in Britain's first hung parliament in decades, according to the poll of 1,191 adults.

Cameron has adjusted to an increasingly eurosceptic mood in Britain, promising a referendum on membership of the European Union in 2017 if he is re-elected, responding to pressure from the right-wing of his party and the rising popularity of UKIP.

However, asked to rank the importance of 10 policies, respondents chose Cameron's offer to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU as the least important. Reducing unemployment was ranked as the most important.

Overall, the poll showed the opposition Labor Party on 36 percent support, the Conservatives on 29 percent, UKIP on 19 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 7 percent.

"Successive polls have indicated the possibility of no party winning an overall majority at the next election," chief executive Michelle Harrison said.

"While it is perhaps no surprise that a sizeable number of Conservative supporters favor a coalition with UKIP, the probability of that being a viable option at the next election is open to question."