Farage denies immigration cap U-turn

The Ukip leader said his party would seek to secure a “common sense” immigration approach instead, in which an Australian-style points system is used to determine who can enter the country.

As part of this policy, Ukip would like to see immigrants with life-threatening illnesses turned away at the border, Mr Farage told an audience in London yesterday.

Insisting the party was not performing a U-turn on a plan announced last month for a 50,000 annual cap, Mr Farage said the UK had gone from being a country where net migration was around 30,000 a year to the most recent figures showing it had reached almost 300,000.

“There are very good reasons why the people of this country are now deeply unhappy with that situation: the impact on schools, the current accident and emergency crisis we have seen this winter in our hospitals, the changes that have happened within our communities,” he said.

“And also just think on this: in what is already the most crowded country in Europe, the fact that we have to build one new dwelling every seven minutes just to cope with current rates of immigration.

“And above all, I think what’s been felt by millions of ordinary, decent working families, is wage compression.

“An unlimited supply of unskilled labour that has made, for many people, the minimum wage in effect the maximum wage.”

Chancellor George Osborne said: “I think what you have heard from our political opponents today, those who are contesting in this general election, is a completely chaotic alternative where they are making it up as they go along.

“Nigel Farage seems to be making it up as he goes along. One moment he is talking about a cap and then he ditches it live on air, which is a novel approach to policy-making.”