Nigel Farage launches Ukip campaign amid criticism of 'racist' rhetoric

Nigel Farage launches Ukip campaign amid criticism of 'racist' rhetoric

Party leader unveils posters for European elections campaign and pledges to tighten access to benefits of EU migrants in UK

Patrick Wintour and Hatty Collier

The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/22/nigel-farage-ukip-european-elections-campaign

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, said that he wanted to restrict access to benefits of 2 million existing EU migrants staying in the UK but admitted that he could not throw them out of the country.

He was speaking at the launch of a Ukip campaign in Sheffield where he was inundated by criticisms of posters alleging that nearly 2 million EU unemployed were seeking jobs in the UK.

Labour claimed the posters were redolent of the Nazi's propaganda chief Goebbels' big lie, and Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said they were hypocritical since Ukip had criticised the Home Office's "Go Home" van advertisements last summer.

Vaz said Farage was lowering the tone of debate in the UK and the shadow international development secretary, Jim Murphy, said they were a desperate cry for attention.

The Tory peer Lord Eden said: "Ukip stands for the worst in human beings: our prejudice, selfishness, and fear."

The posters are being funded by Paul Sykes, one of Ukip's biggest donors. Sykes said he had no idea what the cost of the posters had been and he had not stopped spending yet. He added: "I am going to spend whatever it takes to make the British people aware that we are no longer governed from this great nation of ours."

He later added that he thought the cost might be in the region of £1.4m but there had been many contributions.

Farage said he wanted to refrain from saying anything about Ukip's domestic policies until after the European elections, but said he would not throw out existing EU migrants.

He said: "You can't change the law retrospectively – anyone who's come here legally, you can't say you can't be here legally. You might say there's a slight change to your long-term benefit entitlement but you can't say to people who have legally come that you can't be here."

Farage insisted the campaign launch would strike up a debate between ordinary people across the country.

He said: "The posters are going to wake people up and they're going to get people talking. I'll have a little bet with you that there'll be pubs and clubs and restaurants up and down this country tonight where a big conversation will be going on." Farage plans to spend as long as two weeks in the north targeting the Labour vote. He said he chose Sheffield for the launch because Yorkshire held a lot of symbolism for the party, after they came second in a byelection in Barnsley two years ago.

He said: "The majority of seats here in Yorkshire are held by Labour MPs. We are going to put maximum pressure on Yorkshire, on this part of the world.

"If we're going to win, we can only do it by getting a big labour vote in these northern cities. So that's the symbolism."

Farage was forced again to explain why he was employing his German wife as a secretary, claiming that "nobody else" could do the job, with its long hours. He said: "I don't think anybody else would want to be in my house at midnight, going through emails and getting me briefed for the next day."

Pressed on whether his wife was an example of a European person taking a British person's job, he replied: "Nobody else could do that job – not unless I married them. It's a very different situation to a mass of hundreds of thousands of people coming in and flooding the lower ends of the labour market in Britain."

There was a mixed reaction from the crowd who witnessed the launch, including 73-year-old Margaret Bullivant from Sheffield.

Bullivant, who is retired but works part-time at York racecourse, said: "I am absolutely going to vote for Ukip. My husband and I have worked every bit of our lives. I worked for 44 years and I'm still doing a part-time job so we've paid into the system.

"But there are people coming in that get houses and benefits, and I think it was time it was stopped. It's not the people we're against and if there were enough jobs then fair enough but we haven't the jobs."

Chaz Lockett, 22, who will be standing in Sheffield's local council elections for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, said Ukip were using the election campaign launch to scaremonger and gain political advantage.

Lockett, who is also a student at the University of Sheffield, said: "Ukip are playing on the fears of ordinary people, in a situation where we're having massive cuts to local services and where there's huge unemployment.

"Ukip have come along today and are giving easy answers to the fears that people have, whipping up racism against migrants and people who come to this country. They're using that to gain political advantage out of a horrendous situation. I don't think Farage believes a word he says."