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Matthew Champion
Apr 23, 2015
Nigel Farage has admitted he has a "slight preference" for immigrants to the UK from Australia and India.
But in an BBC interview with Evan Davis the Ukip leader said his opinion was "irrelevant".
After being asked if he favoured some immigrants from some countries over others, Farage replied:
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. But that's irrelevant, when you have an Australian-style points system you take out of that all subjectivity and you look at things on a purely objective basis.
Farage admitted that sometimes he used inflammatory language on immigration 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".
But he denied hating immigrants, immigration, multiculturalism, or anything in fact.
I don't hate anything... I don't hate multiculturalism. We've made some real mistakes with state-sponsored multiculturalism and division within society and that's something, that's something, which well I was saying it a few years ago, was considered to be dreadful, now people like Trevor Phillips say it.
Watch a clip from the interview below:
The full interview is here:
More: [Ten other things Nigel Farage has tried to blame on immigration]1
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