So, Mr Farage, why does UKIP's leader have a German wife? ...and did she make you kip in the spare room over that 'seven-times-a night fling' with a Latvian? | Mail Online
This wouldn't have anything to do with UKIP's threat to the established political parties?!?
New Statesman | UKIP is a threat to Labour - but not in the north
Hugo Swire MP: Ukip threat to the Conservative vote | Western Daily Press
Mr Farage - who is married to a German - made these comments earlier this week:
Nigel Farage in car-crash interview as he faces Ukip racism claims
Ukip aide attempts to halt interview as Nigel Farage says people “know” which foreigners make good neighbours
By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent 1:36PM BST 16 May 2014
3551 CommentsNigel Farage was accused of being a divisive racist in a car-crash interview this morning that his most senior aide attempted to halt.
People “know” which foreigners make good neighbours, Mr Farage suggested, as he struggled to justify his opposition to European immigration while being married to a German.
Patrick O’Flynn, Ukip director of communications, attempted to stop the slew of questions as Mr Farage was challenged about his party’s expenses.
Mr Farage was asked to justify claims made earlier this year that he feels “uncomfortable” and “awkward” on trains where nobody speaks English and parts of Britain are now “a foreign land”.
He said in February: "I got the train the other night, it was rush hour, from Charing Cross. It was a stopper going out and we stopped at London Bridge, New Cross, Hither Green, it was not til we got past Grove Park that I could hear English being audibly spoken in the carriage. Does that make me feel slightly awkward? Yes it does."
Mr Farage’s wife, Kirsten, is German, and his children are bilingual. Mr Farage said she speaks English outside the home.
“You felt uncomfortable about people speaking foreign languages, despite the fact presumably your own wife does when she phones home to Germany,” said James O’Brien, the host of LBC Radio.
Mr Farage replied: “I don’t suppose she speaks it on the train, you know. That’s the point I’m making.”
Mr Farage stood by his view, given in a recent interview, that he would be “concerned” if he had Romanian neighbours.
“I was asked a question if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned. If you lived in London I think you would be," he said.
He said the crime statistics relating to Romanian immigrants are “eye-watering”.
Asked why that would be different to German children moving in next door, he replied: “You know what the difference is.”
He added: "We want an immigration policy that is not just based on controlling not just quantity but quality".
“I’m not demonising anybody. I’m demonising a political class who has had an open door allowing things like this to happen.”
Mr O'Brien claimed there is an "avalanche of bigotry emerging" from Ukip and it represents "deeply divisive and racist ideas."
He accused Mr Farage of conflating the trend of primary school children who speak English as a second language with those who cannot speak English at all. Mr Farage said the trend shows the need for tighter immigration controls.
But the former category would include Mr Farage's own children, Mr O'Brien said. "The point you are making is that children in the East End are full of children who can't speak English. I want you to recognise that's not true," he said. "Most bilingual children in this country are children like yours."
Nigel Farage in car-crash interview as he faces Ukip racism claims - Telegraph
Farage racism row grows as he insists: Romanians ARE more likely to commit crime
- Nigel Farage makes the startling claim during a live radio interview
- Farage branded a 'political Pied Piper' by presenter James O'Brien
- UKIP leader said it was 'perfectly legitimate' to highlight crime figures by nationality
Nigel Farage yesterday stoked the row over his ‘racist’ attack on Romanians by insisting that they were more likely to commit crime than other immigrants.
The UKIP leader said it was ‘perfectly legitimate’ to point out ‘where there are differential crime rates between nationalities’.
The defiance came 24 hours after an interview in which Mr Farage, whose wife is German, claimed people would rather live next door to Germans than Romanians.
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Nigel Farage said people 'have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door'
When asked what the difference was, in an interview considered so disastrous that his senior media aide, Patrick O’Flynn, interrupted to try to stop it, Mr Farage said: ‘You know what the difference is.’
Yesterday, rather than apologise, the UKIP leader declared: ‘Where there are differential crime rates between nationalities, it is perfectly legitimate to point this out and to discuss it in the public sphere.’
He added: ‘Police figures are quite clear that there is a high level of criminality within the Romanian community in Britain.
‘This is not to say for a moment that all or even most Romanian people living in the UK are criminals.
‘But it is to say that any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door.’
LBC presenter James O'Brien said Farage was 'one of the slickest and most dissembling political leaders in living memory'
Mr Farage emphatically denied UKIP was racist and said his comments about Romanians moving in were being criticised by media commentators who lived in ‘million-pound houses and for whom the prospect of such a turn of events is not a real one’.
Meanwhile, the LBC presenter who conducted the original interview has branded Mr Farage ‘one of the slickest and most dissembling political leaders in living memory’.
In an article for The Mail on Sunday, James O’Brien writes today about the radio interview with Farage, saying that the UKIP leader’s ‘cultivated “pint and a fag” facade’ had slipped.
Mr O’Brien says: ‘When the man who leads the party lets his mask slip briefly, it is hardly surprising that people are beginning to ask questions about his convictions.’
The radio presenter described Mr Farage as a ‘political Pied Piper’ leading blindly dancing followers.
To make matters worse for Mr Farage, the multi-millionaire funding his party issued a veiled warning that he could walk away unless UKIP won this week’s European elections.
Nigel Farage insisted that UKIP was not a racist political party
Paul Sykes, who is financing UKIP’s £1.5 million poster campaign, revealed that he has made no commitments to the party beyond this Thursday.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I have told them – I am doing nothing until I see the European results.
‘When I know the vast majority of people are voting UKIP, have voted to leave the EU, then I’m going to roll my sleeves up. But we need that first.’
The frank remarks will send a shiver down the spine of Mr Farage, who will recall how Mr Sykes spectacularly abandoned the party shortly after the European election campaign of 2004.
The former member of the Conservative Party, who is worth an estimated £650 million, dumped UKIP after it announced it was out to ‘kill’ the Tories.
However, Mr Sykes also stressed yesterday that the UKIP of 2014 was a far more impressive operation and made clear he is now a ‘lot more’ committed to the party.
Despite all of Mr Farage’s problems, a ComRes opinion poll last night forecast that UKIP was still on course to win the European elections. It put UKIP on 35 points – with Labour on 24 and the Tories on just 20. The Lib Dems were languishing in fifth place on six points – one behind the Greens
Farage racism row grows as he insists: Romanians ARE more likely to commit crime | Mail Online
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