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| Paris attack: Nigel Farage blames ‘gross policy of multiculturalism’ | Paris attack: Nigel Farage blames ‘gross policy of multiculturalism’ |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has drawn criticism for blaming the Charlie Hebdo terror attack by Islamist extremists on a “really rather gross policy of multiculturalism” in the west. | |
| The politician claimed there was now a “fifth column” operating in the UK, which, though small, was trying to undermine British society. As he argued against multiculturalism, he also brought up the grooming of children in south Yorkshire by men of mainly Muslim Pakistani heritage. | |
| Several senior politicians condemned his remarks, including Nick Clegg, who said he was dismayed that Farage’s first reaction was to make political points about the shooting. | |
| The Labour former cabinet minister Tessa Jowell said they were “sickening comments” as the murder of innocent people was “criminal, plain and simple”. | |
| The Ukip leader made the comments in two separate interviews with LBC and Channel 4 News, as he was asked about the attack on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead. | The Ukip leader made the comments in two separate interviews with LBC and Channel 4 News, as he was asked about the attack on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead. |
| “What should have been done is we should have had a controlled immigration policy and made sure we did full checks on everybody who ever came to this country from anywhere – and that applies to everyone else,” he said on LBC. | “What should have been done is we should have had a controlled immigration policy and made sure we did full checks on everybody who ever came to this country from anywhere – and that applies to everyone else,” he said on LBC. |
| “We in Britain, and I’ve seen some evidence of this in other countries too, have a really rather gross policy of multiculturalism. By that, what I mean is that we’ve encouraged people from other cultures to remain within those cultures and not integrate fully within our communities … | “We in Britain, and I’ve seen some evidence of this in other countries too, have a really rather gross policy of multiculturalism. By that, what I mean is that we’ve encouraged people from other cultures to remain within those cultures and not integrate fully within our communities … |
| “I don’t think anyone can pretend there is a quick fix to this. We have I’m afraid, and mercifully it’s small, but we do have a ‘fifth column’ within our countries.” | “I don’t think anyone can pretend there is a quick fix to this. We have I’m afraid, and mercifully it’s small, but we do have a ‘fifth column’ within our countries.” |
| “And added to that, we have turned a blind eye. You’ve only got to look in the north of England and the sexual grooming of young children to see admissions from public figures that they didn’t bother to turn over the stone, when they heard rumours of things going wrong for fear they might be thought to be racist. So we have made some awful mistakes, but we are where we are. | |
| “On a cultural level, what price anybody who is a standup comic, a cartoonist, a newspaper columnist, who wants to say something critical about Islam at all.” | |
| On Wednesday night he told Channel 4 News: “There is a very strong argument that says that what happened in Paris today is a result – and we’ve seen it in London too – is a result I’m afraid of now having a fifth column living within these countries. | On Wednesday night he told Channel 4 News: “There is a very strong argument that says that what happened in Paris today is a result – and we’ve seen it in London too – is a result I’m afraid of now having a fifth column living within these countries. |
| “We’ve got people living in these countries, holding our passports, who hate us. Luckily their numbers are very, very small but it does make one question the whole really gross attempt at encouraged division within society that we have had in the past few decades in the name of multiculturalism.” | “We’ve got people living in these countries, holding our passports, who hate us. Luckily their numbers are very, very small but it does make one question the whole really gross attempt at encouraged division within society that we have had in the past few decades in the name of multiculturalism.” |
| Clegg accused the Ukip leader of trying to make political capital out of the shooting. | Clegg accused the Ukip leader of trying to make political capital out of the shooting. |
| Speaking on LBC, he said: “I’m dismayed, really, that Nigel Farage immediately thinks, on the back of the bloody murders that we saw on the streets of Paris yesterday, that his first reflex is to seek to make political points. | Speaking on LBC, he said: “I’m dismayed, really, that Nigel Farage immediately thinks, on the back of the bloody murders that we saw on the streets of Paris yesterday, that his first reflex is to seek to make political points. |
| “If this does come down to two individuals who have perverted the cause of Islam to their own bloody ends, let’s remember the greatest antidote to the perversion of that great world religion, Islam, are law-abiding British Muslims themselves. | |
| “And to immediately somehow suggest that many, many British Muslims, who I know feel fervently British but also are very proud of their Muslim faith, are somehow part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, I think is firmly grabbing the wrong end of the stick.” |