Nigel Farage has unveiled his vision for an 'ethical' immigration policy, but confusion surrounds whether he has abandoned the UK Independence Party's (Ukip) proposed cap of 50,000 net migrants per year. Speaking at an evangelical church in central London, the Ukip leader called for a 'return to sanity' on immigration levels, claiming that one house must be built every seven minutes to accommodate new arrivals.
The key elements of the policy include a five-year ban on unskilled migrants, an Australian-style points system for skilled workers, and a requirement for migrants to have private health insurance and be free of life-threatening diseases. An independent watchdog would oversee the system. However, Farage's earlier comments on BBC Radio 4's Today programme suggested he no longer supports numerical caps, stating: 'I'm not putting on caps or targets. You need to have more flexibility than that.'
Later, during his speech, Farage insisted he had not performed a U-turn, arguing that only 27,000 people would qualify under the points system, making a 50,000 cap irrelevant. 'Policies evolve, they develop, they move on,' he said. 'I don't want the emphasis from today to be what our cap is.' This contradicts Ukip immigration spokesman Steven Woolfe, who reiterated the 50,000 cap just last Friday.
Further confusion arose over whether Ukip would bar immigrants with HIV or Aids. Farage appeared to confirm the policy, but Woolfe later clarified that the party would not turn away someone with cancer at the border, emphasising the need for private health insurance instead. Farage stressed that the policy is 'ethical' and does not discriminate based on a migrant's country of origin, whether inside or outside the EU.
When asked if immigration could reach a point where he would be uncomfortable living in Britain, Farage expressed a desire for a country 'at ease with itself' where people 'speak the same language' and 'all get on'. He noted that London is close to having a non-white majority and expressed hope that more ethnic minorities would vote for and stand as Ukip candidates in the future.
