Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party have the only “sensible, realistic” proposals on immigration, the Chairman of Migration Watch UK told Breitbart London.
Alp Mehmet, the chairman of the mass-migration sceptic think tank Migration Watch UK and first-generation immigrant, told Breitbart London that the Brexit Party has “understood what many people feel in the country about immigration”.
Mehmet said that “their leader has come up with the only sensible, realistic suggestions” on immigration.
At the launch of the Brexit Party’s manifesto, Nigel Farage said that the “EU has made an awful mess of saying anyone who set foot on EU soil can stay… You cannot have policies that encourage illegal people traffickers to flourish.”
The Brexit Party’s “Contract with the British People” pledged to put a cap set at a “practical” 50,000 per year for those wanting to settle permanently in the UK with temporary work permits to cover gaps in labour.
While this gave the impression that the party was going to reduce net migration to 50,000, the chairman of Migration Watch UK said: “That, I’m afraid, is not what they were saying.”
“Reducing the number of people being given indefinite leave from around 85,000 to 50,000 is not going to have very much of an impact on net migration,” he added.
Misleading reports, including from the BBC, claimed that this would bring down immigration to 50,000; reducing the number of settlements from 85,000 to 50,000 would still leave net migration in the hundreds of thousands per year.
Nigel Farage, the former leader of UKIP, who has been campaigning to leave the European Union and reduce migration for over 20 years, launched the Brexit Party in April.
The Brexit Party saw a historic electoral success the following month, sweeping to victory in the European Parliament elections in May, winning 29 seats, the most out of any party.
Despite Farage’s frequent criticism of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s immigration plans, the arch-Brexiteer decided to put “country before party” and stood down 317 Brexit Party candidates in Tory stronghold seats in tomorrow’s election.
Mr Farage called on the prime minister to reciprocate and withdraw Conservative candidates in Labour strongholds in order to secure a majority for Brexit; however, Mr Johnson never made such a reciprocation.
Tomorrow’s election will have a deep impact on whether the United Kingdom will be able to leave the European Union, thereby taking back control of the nation’s migration policy.
Mass migration to the UK has put a strain on the nation’s health services, the education system, and has contributed to overcrowding in urban areas.
Alp Mehmet said that Migration Watch UK hopes that all major parties adopt “a policy that allows us to bring in the sort of skills, the sort of people we need but at the same time reduces numbers to the sort of manageable levels that means less pressure, significantly less pressure on our services, on our schools, and so on”.
This week Breitbart London reported that Mr Farage has registered the “Reform Party” in order to hold Boris Johnson to account, should the prime minister win a majority and take the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
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