By Alan Oakley
The outspoken leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage, has confirmed that he would enforce a total ban on immigration to the UK for five years while his party resolves the mess left by Labour’s immigration policy. The dyed-in-the-wool euro-sceptic also said that putting such a ban in place would require the UK to quit the European Union.
Focussing on the sujet du jour, EU immigration, Mr Farage told listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the vast majority of immigration from within the EU had not been beneficial to the UK and that he would prefer to stop it even if it had.
He said: “If you said to me do you want to see another five million people come to Britain, and if that happened we would all be slightly richer, I would say, do you know what? I would rather we were not slightly richer. I would rather we had communities that were rather more united and we had a situation where young unemployed British people had a realistic chance of getting a job”.
Mr Farage added: “In terms of immigration, in terms of people coming to settle, I would suggest that for up to a five-year period we don’t have people coming to settle until we sort out the mess.”
UKIP also believes immigrants should not be able to apply for social housing or benefits until they have paid income tax in the UK for five years. Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who joined Mr Farage, told listeners that EU citizens should not have access to benefits for two years. Mr Johnson also said he supported Tory plans to withdraw the payment of child benefit to EU migrants in the UK if their child still lives elsewhere in the EU. Latest estimates suggest that the parents of 38,000 children living in continental Europe are in receipt of UK child benefit. The vast majority of these children, some 26,000, live in Poland, an EU member state since 2004 and undoubtedly the member with which comparisons have led to the backlash against the yet to materialise mass influx of Romanians and Bulgarians.
The debate on immigration into the UK is becoming increasingly feverish ahead of EU parliamentary elections in May 2014. UKIP, which was formed to campaign against UK membership of the EU, currently holds 9 of the UK’s 73 seats in the European parliament.
Mr Farage told listeners to Radio 4’s breakfast programme that he did not yet have a complete policy on immigration but said that a UKIP government would
• Introduce a moratorium on permanent immigration for five years
• allow skilled workers to come to work in the UK on temporary work permits
• take steps to find and remove the estimated 1-2 million illegal immigrants living in the UK
There seems to be, according to a recent NatCen poll for the BBC, widespread support for Mr Farage’s views on immigration. More than three-quarters of those surveyed said they wanted immigration to the UK to be reduced. An earlier (December 2013) Survation poll suggested that UKIP may well push the Conservatives into 3rd place at the European Parliament elections in May. The Survation poll revealed that 25% of those surveyed intended to vote for UKIP in May; 32% said they would back the official opposition Labour Party and only 24% would vote for the Conservative Party, a statistic that is likely to engender yet more anti-immigration rhetoric from David Cameron.
