Nigel Farage admits he prefers Australian and Indian immigrants to eastern Europeans

 
Preference for Australians: Nigel Farage
Robin de Peyer27 April 2015
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Nigel Farage has admitted he prefers immigrants from India or Australia to arrivals from eastern Europe.

The Ukip leader said he did not hate multiculturalism but warned "real mistakes" had been made with "state sponsored multiculturalism and division within society".

And in an interview with the BBC, he admitted changing the tone of the way he talks about immigration and suggested he had to "wake people up" to the issue in previous years.

Mr Farage, running to become MP for Thanet South on May 7, said: "I have to confess I do have a slight preference.

"I do think, naturally that people from India and Australia are in some ways more likely to speak English, understand common law and have a connection with this country than some people that come perhaps from countries that haven't fully recovered from being behind the Iron Curtain."

Mr Farage was challenged on the tone of his contributions to political debate in an interview with the BBC's Evan Davis, who highlighted the Ukip leader's remarks about HIV patients visiting Britain to use the NHS and comments on foreign criminals.

Mr Farage hit out at accusations Ukip was racist following the party's manifesto launch, which saw an angry reaction from activists when journalists asked about the scarcity of black faces in the policy book.

In the interview, he said: "To wake people up - to wake people up to the truth of what's going on you sometimes have to say things in a way to get noticed, of that there's no question."

His remarks came as an ITV/ComRes poll suggested Ukip was falling behind in key target seats.

Returning to what it called "battleground" seats, ComRes found Ukip was trailing behind the Conservatives and Labour in third place, despite polling more than 15 per cent better than when the seats were polled in 2010.

In its targeted seats, the pollster said the Conservatives were on 39 per cent, down 7.3 per cent, and Labour were on 28 per cent up 1.7 per cent. It found Ukip on 21 per cent, up 15.4 per cent.

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