Nigel Farage has warned that the “nightmare” impact of the illegal migrant crisis is “just beginning” following the jailing of a failed asylum seeker for a sex attack in Hereford.
The Reform UK leader said “we’re only just beginning to see the downstream effects of allowing” more than 200,000 undocumented men into the country.
Failed asylum seeker jailed
Mehmet Bulut, 31, was jailed for six years for a late-night sex attack in Hereford. The Turkish-Kurd, who arrived by small boat in 2022, repeatedly declared “just sex, just sex” after trying to rip a woman’s clothes off.
Bulut told police officers he would apologise to his victim by kissing her hands and her feet. He believed being drunk could have been a justification for his attempted rape.
Worcester Crown Court heard Bulut was lurking near the subway in Hereford when he followed a woman before attacking her at around 4am on Sunday, August 2. Prosecutor Simon Phillips said Bulut removed some of the victim's clothing as he tried to rape her before initially walking off, but he then returned and attacked her again.
The woman told Bulut to "f*** off", to which he replied: "Just sex, just sex," the court heard. Asked if he had been trying to rape the victim, Bulut replied: "I don't know, I don't know, I swear to God I don't know." He added: "If you bring her here, I will kiss her hands and feet and ask for forgiveness."
Defence barrister Dean Easthope said the latter comment was a cultural expression, not sexual, and said Bulut was disgusted, embarrassed and felt terrible. Police later received information that Bulut was working at a restaurant called Grillology and arrested him later that day.
Farage's warning
Mr Farage told the Daily Express: “It is a disaster. And I think we're only just beginning to see the downstream effects of allowing undocumented young males, who threw their iPhones into the sea, their passports into the sea, so you can't check who they are, who are coming from cultures where women are not even second-class citizens, this nightmare is just beginning, unless we're going to get a Government that stops it.”
He declared that if Reform UK wins the next election, “we’re going to stop mucking about”. He said: “People here illegally will be deported. They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be here. People who come here legally, but offend, shouldn't be here. They should go.”
Reform vowed to close the asylum system for five years and order food safety investigators, environmental health teams and trading standards to help immigration officials snare illegal migrants living in the UK. They would carry out “basic” immigration checks, it is understood.
Cohesion problems
Mr Farage warned the asylum housing crisis is leading to “cohesion problems” across the country. He admitted “tens of millions” of “ordinary people” are now feeling the impact of more people being placed in communities.
During a visit to Basildon, Essex, he heard how Home Office asylum accommodation teams are placing migrants next to domestic abuse victims and women with kids. This, he described, is a sign of “social disintegration”.
He added: “The whole thing's fallen to pieces. It's happening very, very quickly. I'm not sure Westminster really has woken up to the sheer impact of this, because they think of this stuff in inner cities. They think, "Oh, central Birmingham, central London, you know, maybe that's where we've got cohesion problems." We saw it in Basildon this morning. The impact of what's been allowed by the last two governments, this mass wave of illegal immigrants coming into Britain with no possibility of us identifying who they actually are, the impact is being felt. The mayor in Basildon said, ‘This place is unrecognisable from 5 years ago’. The impact of the huge errors of both the Tory and Labour governments are being felt by ordinary people in their tens of millions across the country.”
In total, more than 213,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats. Some 69,000 foreign nationals are living in dispersal accommodation – housing, flats and bedsits. Labour has shifted to a model of moving more migrants into HMOs and former military bases so that they can close hotels.
Mr Farage said: “Some of the things the Mayor in Basildon had to say were really shocking. Hundreds of young men, not in migrant hotels, in HMOs, which means living in your street. And he was pointing out two things: one, it has made people fearful of going into the centre of Basildon even during daylight hours. And the other, that a lot of people that get placed in HMOs are young, single mothers, you know, a bit down on their luck in life, getting placed in HMOs next to men who come from cultures where, you know, women aren't even regarded as second-class citizens.”
This includes, the Express understands, domestic abuse victims. Essex County Council has paid for private security guards to patrol Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford amid fears from locals over migrants from Wethersfield asylum camp wandering freely. They’ve intervened in cases of asylum seekers staring intensely at schoolgirls, voyeurism and theft, it is understood.
Mr Farage told the Daily Express: “Wethersfield is an abomination, an old RAF site, full of a very large number of young, unidentified males that came across the English Channel into our country. And there’s 17 minibuses every day bussing them out, ‘come on out on a free day trip, boys’. Whether it's Colchester, Chelmsford, or Braintree. And members of the public thinking, "Oh, you know, I'm not sure whether I'll go into town today with these young men loitering in groups and walking around. But actually, they've gone way beyond providing reassurance against groups of, I say, young males loitering around. They're actually fighting crime. They're stopping shoplifters. They've stopped a sexual assault. You know, they're doing many, many things, and I think this perhaps provides a great model for us right across the country.”
Mr Farage admitted even a mass-deportation campaign is unlikely to repair the damage. He said: “Would those measures undo all of the damage that's been done? No. I've got to be honest, I can't wave a magic wand, I can't turn the clock back, but I can make it a lot better than it is.”
