Nigel Farage tells Beth Rigby the Tories have ‘betrayed’ Brexit and should accept worker shortages to cut immigration
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 was speaking to Beth Rigby Interviews… following the release of the latest net migration figures.
These showed the population grew by 606,000 due to people arriving in the UK in the year to December 2022.
This is clearly in opposition to what Mr Farage said would happen in the event of the UK leaving the European Union.
Politics latest:
Labour attacks Braverman no show in House of Commons
Tory MPs react angrily to new migration figure
Beth Rigby and Nigel Farage
He was asked if he would have accepted “worker shortages” to reduce net migration to 50,000 as he campaigned for in the 2019 election.
Mr Farage said: “If that meant there was a realistic chance of people finding somewhere to live?
“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”.
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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.
When it came to the 2019 general election, the party did not win any seats, but did stand aside in areas the Conservatives already held to avoid splitting the Brexit-supporting vote there.
Mr Farage lobbied the government on its handling of Brexit negotiations as Brexit Party leader
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.
Mr Farage has never run successfully for 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
World
Ireland pledging emergency legislation to send asylum seekers back to UK in wake of Rwanda bill being passed
Ireland is pledging emergency legislation enabling it to send asylum seekers back to the UK.
More than 80% of recent arrivals in the republic came via the land border with Northern Ireland, Irish justice minister Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee last week.
Rishi Sunak told Sky News it showed the UK’s Rwanda scheme was already working as a deterrent after it finally became law last week.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ireland plans to return migrants to UK
Read more: Anti-immigrant camp in Dublin ‘not about racism’, residents say
Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said the threat of deportation to Rwanda is causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK.
Micheal Martin said the policy was already affecting Ireland because people are “fearful” of staying in the UK.
The former taoiseach told The Daily Telegraph: “Maybe that’s the impact it was designed to have.”
Protesters in Dublin. Pic: PA
Simon Harris, Ireland’s latest leader, has asked Ms McEntee to “bring proposals to cabinet to amend existing law regarding the designation of safe ‘third countries’ and allowing the return of inadmissible international protection applicants to the UK”, a spokesman said.
Ms McEntee said she will be meeting UK Home Secretary James Cleverly in London on Monday.
“There are many reasons why we have seen an increase in migration towards Ireland,” she told RTE.
“My focus as minister for justice is making sure that we have an effective immigration structure and system.
“That’s why I’m introducing fast processing, that’s why I’ll have emergency legislation at cabinet this week to make sure that we can effectively return people to the UK, and that’s why I’ll be meeting with the home secretary to raise these issues on Monday.”
People are now “worried” about coming to the UK, Rishi Sunak has said.
He told Sky News: “If people come to our country illegally, but know that they won’t be able to stay here, they are much less likely to come, and that’s why the Rwanda scheme is so important.”
Read more:
Tory MP and doctor Dan Poulter defects to Labour
Humza Yousaf to reject pact with Alex Salmond’s Alba Party
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Are migrants fleeing from UK to Ireland?
Mr Sunak said the comments from Irish politicians show that “illegal migration is a global challenge”.
“[That] is why you’re seeing multiple countries talk about doing third country partnerships, looking at novel ways to solve this problem, and I believe [they] will follow where the UK has led,” he said.
Shadow minister Wes Streeting said it was unlikely a Labour government would bring people back from Rwanda if some are sent there.
“Once people are settled in Rwanda, they’re settled in Rwanda,” he told Sky News, adding it was doubtful that Labour would “unpick that situation”.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Regarding illegal migration in general, he said it required “putting the money that’s gone to Rwanda into the National Crime Agency so we can have proper cross-border policing to tackle the criminal gangs, speeding up the processing of decision-making, making sure we’ve got serious returns agreements with other countries”.
He added: “Those are solutions that can work.”
Pope Francis has made his first trip out of Rome for seven months with a visit to Venice where he asked worshippers to “pray for me”.
It was a rare acknowledgement of the strains of the job as he told thousands of the faithful gathered in St Mark’s Square: “This work is not easy”.
During a five-hour visit on Sunday, the pontiff visited an art exhibition and prison as well as conducting mass.
The 87-year-old unexpectedly withdrew from a Good Friday procession in March “to preserve his health”.
He had been battling respiratory problems all winter that made it difficult for him to speak at length.
In December, he was due to go to the United Arab Emirates, but pulled out after coming down with flu.
A painful knee ailment makes it hard for him to walk and on Sunday he regularly used a wheelchair, with Vatican News Television cutting away whenever he was helped into a chair to give a speech, or on to his white golf cart.
Pic: Reuters
Read more from Sky News:
Ireland pledges law to send asylum seekers back to UK
Harry to visit UK on second trip since King’s cancer diagnosis
The Pope acknowledged Venice’s “enchanting beauty” in his homily at a mass before about 10,000 people in the shadow of St Mark’s Basilica, one of the most celebrated churches in Italy.
But he said the city also faced an array of challenges, including climate change, the fragility of its cultural heritage, and overtourism.
“Moreover, all these realities risk generating… frayed social relations, individualism, and loneliness,” he said.
Venice introduced a €5 charge last week for day-trippers during peak travel periods in an effort to thin the crowds.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He started the day by flying by helicopter into a women’s prison where the Vatican has set up an exhibition that is part of the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international art show that has never been visited by a pope before.
The pope has repeatedly called for society to rally around the poor and neglected, including prison populations.
“Prison is a harsh reality, and problems such as overcrowding, the lack of facilities and resources, and episodes of violence, give rise to a great deal of suffering. But it can also become a place of moral and material rebirth,” he told inmates and guards on Sunday.
He also addressed a group of young Venetians, urging them not to spend their life glued to their smartphones, but to help others.
“If we always focus on our self, our needs, and what we lack, we will always find ourselves back at the starting point, crying over ourselves with a long face,” he said.
Two Russian journalists could face at least two years in prison after they were arrested on “extremism” charges, accused of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin are accused of preparing materials for a YouTube channel run by Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which has been outlawed by Russian authorities.
Russian courts have ordered them to remain in custody pending an investigation and trial.
They will be detained for at least two months before any trial begins.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What happened to Alexei Navalny?
They face a minimum of two years’ jail time and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organisation”, according to Russian courts.
Both journalists deny the charges.
Follow live: Tajikistan issues temporary travel ban to Russia
The journalists are the latest to be arrested amid a Russian government crackdown on dissent and independent media that intensified after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian government passed laws criminalising what it deems false information or discreditory statements about the military, effectively outlawing any criticism of the war in Ukraine.
Read more from Sky News:
Ireland pledges emergency law to send asylum seekers back to UK
Second man dies after taking ‘unusually strong batch’ of heroin
Mr Gabov, who was detained in Moscow, is a freelance producer who has worked for multiple outlets, including Reuters, the court press service said.
Mr Karelin, who has dual citizenship with Israel and has previously worked for The Associated Press, was detained on Friday night in Russia’s northern Murmansk region.
“The Associated Press is very concerned by the detention of Russian video journalist Sergey Karelin,” the AP said in a statement. “We are seeking additional information.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Their arrests come after Forbes journalist Sergei Mingazov was detained on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military on Friday, according to his lawyer.
A number of journalists have been jailed in relation to their coverage of Mr Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony in February.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment11 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Technology3 years ago
Game consoles were once banned in China. Now Chinese developers want a slice of the $49 billion pie
-
Politics2 years ago
Have the last few wobbly weeks seen a turning point for Johnson as PM?