Nigel Farage would “of course” accept worker shortages if it meant lower migration, the Eurosceptic campaigner has told Sky News – and wouldn’t rule out another attempt to become an MP.
Mr Farage said: “If that meant there was a realistic chance of people finding somewhere to live?
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“A school for their kids to go to that was local people getting access to the National Health Service, then? Yes, of course.”
He added that “before 2004 when this really kicked off, right, cabbages were not rotting in the fields of Lincolnshire”.
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Mr Farage said: “Elderly people were not being left alone in old people’s homes – we managed to do all of this and we’ve now become addicted to cheap unskilled, foreign, imported labour.
“We have to reverse that process.”
Farage ‘hand on heart’ meant Brexit promises
A report from the National Farmers Union last year suggested a shortage of workers led to £22m of fruit and vegetables being lost in the first half of 2022.
Mr Farage said – had he been in power – he would have reduced net migration down to around 30,000 – around 5% of what it is now.
Last year, some 45,755 people alone arrived in the UK in small boats across the Channel.
He also denied “hand on heart” that he was dishonest about the promises he made over Brexit.
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1:35
Nigel Farage speaks to Beth Rigby
Asked what he would specifically target to reduce net migration, Mr Farage took aim at the salary requirement for a skilled worker visa – which he said was set at “minimum wage”.
According to the government website, people need to be paid “at least £26,200 per year or £10.75 per hour” to qualify for such a way into the UK – although it would need to be more if the average earning for your sector is higher.
The minimum wage is £10.42 for those aged 23 and over, and falls to £10.18 for 21 and 22-year-olds, and again to £7.49 for 18 to 20-year-olds.
Mr Farage also said he wouldn’t have allowed students to bring in dependents with them on educational visas – something the Conservative government is now changing.
He claimed the reason for such a discrepancy between his campaigning and the current situation was that he “wasn’t in charge” – and took aim at the Conservative Party all the way from the result of the Brexit referendum.
Mr Farage said that the day after the vote to leave the “very people I’d fought against for 25 years” were still in power.
He claimed he “got rid of [Theresa] May” and that without him Boris Johnson “wouldn’t have even been prime minister”.
Tory promises in 2019 were ‘a big lie’
Mr Farage, who is now president of the Reform Party, was a figurehead for the Brexit Party – its predecessor – in 2019, which swept the board to become the largest UK party in the European elections that year.
But the Brexit campaigner now thinks the 2019 manifesto put to the country by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives was a “big lie” – a phrase Donald Trump uses to refer to the result of the last US general election, which he lost.
“I stood aside in that 2019 general election, helping them to get that big majority, because I believed that perhaps finally they understood what Brexit was about,” Mr Farage told Beth Rigby.
“And we’ve now, four years down the road, got a Remainer, globalist Conservative Party who have betrayed that trust.”
Globalist is again a term utilised by Trump, who Mr Farage has appeared alongside numerous times and also interviewed.
Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister, has long supported Brexit.
Mr Johnson was a lead figure in the Brexit campaign, and while Liz Truss supported Remain in the 2016 vote, she has since campaigned to be tough on the EU.
Mr Farage hinted that he may be considering running for parliament again – having never successfully contested a Westminster seat.
A change to the electoral system would make a run more likely, he added.
The former UKIP leader predicted “another insurgency” in UK politics – “whether it’ll be Reform, whether it’ll be me, whether we get a new Nick Griffin [the former leader of the far-right British National Party]”.
Mr Farage said: “I think if I stood again, it would be a much more revolutionary agenda than just Brexit.”
You can watch Beth Rigby Interviews in full with Nigel Farage on Sky News at 9pm tonight
The US told a G7 meeting that Israel had told it about the attack “at the last minute”.
Israel had been weighing up how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel last weekend – with Western powers urging restraint.
“It has not been proved to us that there is a connection between these and Israel,” Mr Amir-Abdollahian told Sky’s US partner NBC News.
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2:31
Israel wanted to ‘send a message’
Iran said its air defences destroyed three drones and reported no damage or casualties.
The foreign minister said they were “more like toys that our children play with” than a serious threat, as he sought to play down the threat.
Authorities and media in Iran have described it as an attack by unknown “infiltrators”, dismissing the notion it was an Israeli offensive that bypassed its border defences.
Experts have said the modest, targeted strike appeared designed to avoid further escalation and it appears – for now – to have dampened fears of direct war.
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1:52
‘Blasts’ shown over Iran
‘If not, then we are done’
Mr Amir-Abdollahian said Iran was still investigating the attack and reiterated Israeli retaliation would mean an immediate and severe response – “but if not, then we are done. We are concluded”.
Meanwhile, the former head of Israel’s national security council said he didn’t believe there would be “real escalation” after Friday’s limited attack.
Major General Giora Eiland told Sky’s Yalda Hakim the strike showed Israel can reach “even sensitive places”, but it had tried to “do it in a way that both sides can be satisfied”.
He said both nations would try to emphasise their own success and minimise that of the other side.
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It was mostly intercepted and no deaths were reported, but was a dramatic moment that bypassed the usual method of attacks via proxy groups.
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2:13
Military analyst Professor Clarke on Israeli attack
Iran’s attack was itself retaliation for a strike – attributed to Israel – on an Iranian consulate in Syria on 1 April.
Two generals and seven members of Iran’s revolutionary guards were killed in the incident.
The Israel-Hamas war – which has seen attacks by Iranian and Israeli proxies increase – has helped create the conditions for this week’s historic flare-up.
Iran has grounded commercial flights across parts of the country after reports of explosions.
State media also said Iran fired its air defence systems after reports of blasts near the city of Isfahan.
It remained unclear if the country was under attack.
But tensions remain high in the wider Middle East after Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, AP reported.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said its air defences fired across several provinces – but did not elaborate on what caused the batteries to fire.
State television noted a “loud noise” in the area.
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A major airbase for the Iranian military is in Isfahan, as well as sites associated with its nuclear program.
Iranian state TV said its nuclear facilities remain unharmed, Reuters news agency reported.
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The deaths of 48 people in the worst fire in the history of Ireland have been ruled by a jury as unlawful killing.
A jury at Dublin District Coroner’s Court delivered majority verdicts on the victims of the 1981 Stardust nightclub fire in the city on Thursday.
The venue in Artane, north Dublin, was packed with around 800 people when the fire broke out in the early hours of Valentine’s Day.
More than 200 people were injured in the disaster.
Fresh inquests into the deaths, the longest held in Ireland, were ordered by the country’s attorney general in 2019, but only began last year.
A jury, made up of seven women and five men, delivered the verdict on Thursday after 11 days of deliberation.
Some family members of the victims jumped to their feet and clapped at the verdict, while others were moved to tears as they remained in their seat.
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Others embraced each other as soon as the foreman said “unlawful killing”.
The jury also established that the fire started as a result of an electrical fault in an airing cupboard.
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In the ballroom, foam in the seating, the height of the ceiling in an alcove, and carpet tiles on the wall all contributed to the spread of the fire, the jurors found.
Several factors, including lack of visibility because of black smoke, the toxicity of the smoke or the gases, the heat of the fire, the speed of the fire’s spread, lack of staff preparedness and the failure of the emergency lighting system were all factors that impeded the victims in escaping the building.
It was unable to determine when the blaze started but said it was first seen outside the building between 1.20am and 1.40am.
Jurors said the fire was first seen inside the ballroom between 1.35am and 1.40am.
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane paid tribute to the “persistence and commitment” of the families who had campaigned for fresh inquests.
“To the families I acknowledge the deaths of these 48 young people is a source of ongoing grief to those who loved them and it remains the defining loss of their lives,” she said.
“However, I hope that family members will have taken some solace from the fact that these fresh inquests were held, that the facts surrounding the deaths were examined in detail, that moving testimony was heard from many of those involved in the events of the night and, most importantly, that you the families felt fully involved in proceedings, however difficult it was to hear all of the evidence.
“The fact that these inquests have been held at all is in no small part due to the persistence and commitment of families over the years.
“And, finally, we remember those 48 young people who lost their lives on that fateful night. It is their lives that we’ve sought to vindicate by way of these inquests.”
On Wednesday, the foreman told coroner Myra Cullinane they had been unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Ms Cullinane said she would accept a simple majority of seven and allowed the jury’s deliberations to continue.
A tribunal of inquiry set up soon after the fire found arson was the “probable” cause, something the families rejected as it appeared to blame those attending the disco and absolved the club’s owners.
This is despite evidence that exits in the ballroom were locked, chained or otherwise obstructed, which the jury confirmed this afternoon.
They were themselves awarded IR£581,000 compensation by a Dublin court in 1983.
But victims’ relatives kept pushing for a new investigation and, eventually, new inquests were announced, only for legal arguments and wrangling over juror pay to delay proceedings by a further four years.
Ireland’s prime minister, Simon Harris, described the Stardust tragedy as “one of the darkest moments in our history”.
“A heartbreaking tragedy because of the lives that were lost, the families that were changed forever, and the long, drawn-out struggle for justice that followed,” he said.
In a statement after a jury at inquests into the deaths of the 48 people in the Dublin nightclub disaster in 1981 returned a verdict of unlawful killing, Mr Harris remembered those who lost their lives and paid tribute to their families for pursuing truth and justice “to ensure that such a disaster never happens again”.
He said the Irish government will consider the verdict in full, and the recommendations of the jury.
“I want to acknowledge and thank the coroner, and her team and the jurors,” he said.
“48 young people never came home that night, but as Taoiseach I want to say this to their families; You never gave up on justice for them, you never let Ireland forget about them. They were never alone, and our country owes you a great debt for that.”