We fact-checked Nigel Farage. You'll never believe what happened next

In an appearance on Fox News this week Nigel Farage claimed there were some "clear examples" in Britain of where immigration services were allowing women to immigrate to join polygamous marriages.

This was the Ukip's leaders full quote:

We even, a few years ago, had some quite clear examples where the immigration services were actually allowing women to come into Britain from Pakistan and elsewhere to join polygamous marriages, something that is against our law.

We said we would ask Ukip to provide some examples, and this is what they sent over:

1) A documentary about a men with many wives
2) A review of it in the Telegraph
3) A comment piece by Baroness Flather
4) A Daily Mail piece about how polygamous immigrant families to be paid more benefits after Government blunder

Here is why those examples don't stand up to the label of being "quite clear".

The Men with Many Wives documentary:

The first two links were one from The Telegraph and from Channel 4 about the 2014 The Men with Many Wives documentary about polygamous marriages in Britain. i100.co.uk watched the programme and of the ten women featured, three are explicitly described as immigrants. One is from Yemen, one from Australia, and one from Malaysia who immigrated to England originally to study at Cambridge. Another wife mentioned in the documentary is still living in Morocco.

The immigration circumstances of all the wives are not mentioned - hardly “quite clear”.

Baroness Flather's comment piece

This article does not cite any clear examples of immigration of women into polygamous marriages but Baroness Flather does claim there is a "misuse" of the benefit system by Pakistani and Bengali migrants in the UK where "a Pakistani man contracts a marriage in his native country, and then brings his wife to England to start a family. Because they have been married only under Islamic law, she isn’t legally registered by British authorities as his wife". This is about benefit abuse rather than lax immigration services.

When approached for a comment, Baroness Flather sided with Mr Farage arguing there was "clear evidence to Nigel Farage’s claim", but she could not think of any examples "off the top of her head."

The final Daily Mail article

This is about benefits and does not discuss immigration circumstances at all.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice said that they could not comment specifically on Mr Farage's assertion, but added: "Attempting to legally enter into a polygamous marriage in the UK is a criminal offence which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

"Sharia law has no jurisdiction in England and Wales. The Government has no intention of changing this position."

More: Nigel Farage was on Fox News and was as bad as Steve Emerson