The UK Independence Party has announced plans to support eurosceptic Tory and Labour candidates on the campaign trail.

Ukip leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch will take to the streets with Tories Philip Hollobone in Kettering, Northamptonshire, and Philip Davies in Shipley, West Yorkshire, and will back Mark Reckless in Rochester and Strood in Kent on Friday.

Lord Pearson will also join Labour's David Drew in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on Thursday as Ukip steps up its policy of supporting rival candidates opposed to the UK's membership of the European Union.

At Ukip's manifesto launch this month, Lord Pearson revealed the names of five eurosceptic Tory candidates who the party would not stand against, as well as Mr Drew and independent Bob Spink in Castle Point, Essex.

Before the General Election campaign began, Lord Pearson said he would be seeking assurances from the rival party candidates that they would fight for the UK's withdrawal from the EU - defying orders if necessary.

"It won't be enough for them to say airy-fairily 'I'm a better off outer' - they will have to give a commitment with which I am satisfied that they really will fight for our freedom when they get into the House of Commons in questions and debates... and if necessary they must defy the whip," he told the Press Association.

"We want members of the House of Commons who will start to form a group there, start to form a small group of dissidents against the apparatus of the European Union."

Ukip is also not running against Tory candidates Douglas Carswell (Clacton, Essex), Janice Small (Batley and Spen, West Yorkshire) and Alex Story (Wakefield, West Yorkshire).