Former Tory cabinet minister Ken Clarke has said he would be "fiercely opposed" to any post-election deal with UKIP - dismissing the party as "just angry protest".
The veteran MP's withering comments came as UKIP leader Nigel Farage outlined his demands for propping up a minority Conservative government after the poll in May.
His terms would include holding an EU referendum this year.
Mr Clarke told Sky News' Murnaghan programme: "I would be fiercely opposed to anybody doing any deal with a hardline right-wing nationalist party that wants to blame foreigners and Brussels for all our problems.
"It would be an extraordinary thing to do to enter into an agreement with a party that is just angry protest.
"I understand angry protest but it is not a party that any of the serious governing parties should enter into deals with."
Prime Minister David Cameron has promised the British people a vote on whether to leave Brussels by the end of 2017 if he remains in Downing Street after the General Election.
But Mr Clarke, who is pro-European, said he agreed with the UKIP leader - at least on the timing of a referendum.
He said: "If we have a referendum, I would quite like it to be done early.
"We have achieved most of the things that David Cameron set out in his Bloomberg speech when he announced his desire to have a referendum and I think having this neurotic debate with occasional interventions from Mr Farage for the first two years of the next parliament is a nonsense that no government, whoever is elected, would really seriously want to put up with."
Mr Farage's demand for a 2015 referendum on EU membership was made in a four-point ultimatum published in an extract from his memoirs in the Sunday Telegraph.
He said he would ban EU citizens from voting in it unless they also held a British passport, even though this would see his German wife Kirsten unable to take part and could also lead to a legal challenge.
However, the UKIP parliamentary candidate for South Thanet says that his party will not enter a formal coalition with the Tories and he is not interested in a "ministerial car".
Mr Farage says his deal "would be very precise and simple".
He says: "I would look to do a deal where we would back key votes for them - such as the Budget - but in return for very specific criteria on an EU referendum.
"I want a full and fair referendum to be held in 2015 to allow Britons to vote on being in or out of the European Union. There would be no wiggle room for 're-negotiation' somewhere down the line'."
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