“Ban Immigrants From Settling in the UK For 5yrs” – Nigel Farage

UK Independent Party (Ukip) Leader, Nigel Farage, has been calling for a five-year ban on immigrants settling in the UK.

The far-right politician made the call while speaking on a BBC Radio 4Today programme on Tuesday.

Mr Farage said the ban on immigrants settling would remain while Britain’s immigration policy was “sorted”, telling the BBC Radio programme: “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.”

He also said he would prefer for the UK to have fewer immigrants even if it meant that the country would be slightly worse off economically.

“If you said to me ‘Would you want to see over the next 10 years a further 5 million people come into Britain and if that happened we would all be slightly richer?’, I would say ‘Actually, do you know what? I would rather we weren’t slightly richer and I would rather we had communities that felt more united and I would rather have a situation where young unemployed British people had a realistic chance of getting a job.

“So, yes, I do think the social side of these matters more than pure market economics.”

The leader of the UK Independence Party also said all immigrants should be banned from claiming benefits for five years after arriving into Britain and said there should be no “open door” for migrants from Bulgaria and Romania.

He admitted, however, that Ukip have not exactly formulated a policy on immigration but said he preferred an Australian-style immigration policy of temporary work permits, “that says we want highly skilled people […] who will contribute to British life and the British economy.”

“Let’s be flexible on work permits, let’s recognise that we do have some skills shortages in the British economy – which is very much a failure of our education system,” he said.