Nigel Farage: Romanians want to move to a ‘civilised country’
By Adam Bienkov
People in Romania and Bulgaria are "living like animals" and will want to live in a "civilised country" like the UK instead, Nigel Farage said today.
The Ukip leader said he had visited a Roma camp in Bulgaria and was shocked to find the unsanitary conditions people were living in.
"If you look at Romania and Bulgaria… I've been to both of those countries and frankly I've been shocked at the conditions the Roma people live in," he told LBC radio.
"I went to the big Roma camp outside Sofia and there were 70,000 Roma people living there, no proper sanitation, no work. The whole thing was truly shocking, I mean living like animals."
He said the British government had underestimated the amount of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants who would want to come to a "civilised" country like the UK.
"What would you do? If an opportunity came up to come to a civilised country with a decent health service that will provide you with housing, give you a chance to get work, what would you do? I mean come on."
He said that discrimination against the Roma people meant "they find it virtually impossible to get work even if they want to go out and get it."
Farage also claimed that Britain would face a "Romanian crime wave epidemic", when the EU drops eastern European immigration restrictions next year.
"No-one dares to talk about this but in London we've now got a Romanian crime wave epidemic which is only going to get worse."
He also claimed that people from Eastern Europe are visiting the UK in "vast numbers" to take advantage of our health service.
Farage denied that Ukip are a racist party. "We in UKIP are not against anybody from any other part of the world or any religion or any race but it's about time we started putting the interests of British people first."
He also suggested that some of the racist comments reportedly made by Ukip councillors and activists had been "orchestrated" from outside the party.
