Nigel Farage emerged on top after a bitter face-off with Nick Clegg which saw them brand each other liars and fantasists, according to a poll.
A snap YouGov survey suggested 68% thought the Ukip leader had performed best in their second televised debate, compared to 27% who favoured the deputy prime minister.
The verdict followed an hour of increasingly bad-tempered exchanges, with Mr Clegg repeatedly accusing his opponent of “fantasy”. He also picked up Mr Farage for “indefensible” comments in which he suggested he admired Russian president Vladimir Putin for outwitting the EU and western leaders.
“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,” Mr Clegg said. But Mr Farage retorted that the Liberal Democrat leader was “wilfully lying” about how many laws were imposed on the UK by the EU. “I said yes to these debates. I thought you would honestly make the pro-EU case,” Mr Farage said. “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.”
During one of the hardest-fought passages, Mr Farage warned that immigration had been a “disaster” and left the “white working-class effectively as an underclass”. A separate Guardian/ICM poll also gave Mr Farage victory, by 69% to 31%.
The margin was larger than the 57% to 36% recorded by YouGov in an equivalent snap survey last Wednesday.
Mr Clegg took a more aggressive and impassioned approach to get his message across and unsettle Mr Farage. The Ukip leader said the scale of immigration over recent years had “shocked” the country and increased segregation in towns and cities.
“Worst of all what it has done socially, it has left, I’m afraid, the white working class – and yes, I know educationally many of them have not done as well as we would have liked – but it has left the white working-class effectively as an underclass, and I think that is a disaster for our society,” Mr Farage said.
But Mr Clegg replied: “The idea that there will be no problems at all where we are not part of the EU… you can’t simply wish away the fact that people down the centuries have moved from one country to the next.
“What we need to make sure is that people play by the rules, they don’t exploit our generosity through benefits, we make sure we support public services and we make sure we support jobs in our country that go to many British people.”
Mr Clegg said it was “silly” to suggest that 485million people in Europe were about to come to Britain. “It is as silly as me saying that five million people living in Scotland might all move to Orpington next Tuesday.”
Mr Farage said immigration had benefited “rich people” by suppressing the costs of their staff and services. “It is good for the rich because it is cheaper nannies and cheaper chauffeurs and cheaper gardeners,” he said.
Warning of a further wave of immigration from countries such as Greece and Spain, Mr Farage accused the Deputy Prime Minister of being part of a “career political class” who were in cahoots with big business and wanted to maintain the status quo.
However, Mr Clegg warned the audience not to buy Mr Farage’s argument that Britain could have all the positives of EU membership without the costs. At one point he accused the Ukip leader of “making things up to make a point”.