Nigel Farage, Say No to EU Tour – Basingstoke, 16/11/2015

Nigel Farage, Say No to EU Tour –  Basingstoke public meeting, 16/11/2015

(http://livestream.com/believeinbritain/events/4512050 – speech starts at 16:30 mins)

Thank you. Well good evening everybody and thank you very much indeed for coming along in such amazing numbers. I’m sure that you, with me, share the absolute horror and total revulsion at what happened in Paris last Friday. And we should not for one moment pretend that this was an isolated one-off attack, it just happens to be the worst one that we’ve seen on European soil of many.

The thing that I suppose that makes me angry about what happened in Paris is frankly the fact that it was so utterly and entirely predictable. I think we’ve reached a point where we have to admit to ourselves, in Britain, and France, and much of the rest of Europe, that mass immigration and multicultural division has for now been a failure.

The pace of people coming, the sheer numbers of people coming has been too fast, has been too great, that it’s proven impossible for us to have integrated societies. And I’m afraid there is, and we have to be honest and frank about this and talk about these things without being fearful, there is a problem with some of the Muslim community in this country.

There is a problem, and we have to be honest about it. Our politicians, I’m afraid, haven’t had the guts. We’ve known for years about the hate preachers saying things for which any of the rest of us would have been arrested on the spot. We know about the problems of the Trojan Horses that we’ve seen in our schools and our prisons.

And we also have to look perhaps at the population. There are now three million Muslim people living in Britain. That is an increase of seventy-five percent over the course of the last ten years. And yet, within that now significantly large group of people, there is considerable alienation. Particularly amongst many of their young.

It is deeply worrying that after the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this year in Paris, when polled, twenty-seven percent of British Muslims expressed some sympathy with the motives that had carried out that massacre. Eleven percent of that three million said they thought that the people who produced those cartoons of Muhammad actually deserved to be attacked.

And amongst the sixteen to twenty-four year-olds there are about a third of young Muslims in Britain who’ve got very split and divided loyalties. In fact, it seems that a third think their loyalty to their religion, or the interpretation of the religion they’re told, is greater than it is to this country. Now that, on the face of it, looks pretty depressing.

But actually there is, within this, an interesting message of hope. Because that same sample of people when they were asked do they feel loyalty to the country in which they live, ninety-five percent said yes. When they were asked did they think British law should be the supreme law of the country, ninety-three percent said yes.

So how is it that the same sample of people can give two such contradictory answers? The reason is there is a tremendous conflict. There is a split of loyalties. That on the one hand, you know people want to get on, and want to be happy, and want to get on with their neighbours, and want their kids to play with each other.

But on the other they’re being told things. They’re being told things via the Internet. But they’re being told things in some of our mosques that directly conflict with the way that most normal people would want to live. And I have to say that in many ways our perpetual neo-con approach, where we go on trying to get rid of leaders of Arab and North African countries and think bombing is the answer to everything, in many ways we’ve made it easy for some of these people.

But we have to attempt to stop this constant dripping of poison in the ears of young British Muslims. And we have every reason to believe that the main source of this problem is coming from money. Money that is pouring into our universities, money that is pouring into our mosques. And it’s coming from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is funding this extreme ideology.

Incidentally, this is the same Saudi Arabia who have so far refused to take a single person from war-torn Syria or anywhere else in the region. The same Saudi Arabia who said they don’t want to take large numbers of refugees or migrants because they fear it might upset the balance of their society. And yet it’s the same Saudi Arabia that is now prepared to fund the building of two hundred mosques in Germany.

I was told tonight by a media source, well Mr Farage, what you’re saying would threaten our trade with Saudi Arabia. I think our security and our safety matters more than our trade with Saudi Arabia. And I have a proposal that I think could solve this problem.
I propose that all churches and all faith groups in this country should in future, under law, have to declare publically all their sources of income. And if the money for any church or faith group is coming from a legitimate background then of course there is nothing to fear. But that is the way I think we can sort this problem out. We cannot go on with our so-called friend Saudi Arabia doing these things. And frankly I have to say I think if we can stop the money, if we can stop the funding of the hate preachers then I hope and believe that there’ll be many, many voices within the Muslim community who will be emboldened to speak to their young people and to teach them some common sense.

And yes, we need some plain speaking about this word ‘multiculturalism.’ For the great and the good, and the political class, it has been in many ways their test of moral superiority. You know, ‘I support multiculturalism therefore I’m a better, finer person than you.’ But it all means what we define multiculturalism. If you’re talking about a country that has a broad ethnic and religious mix, made up of people who’ve come to Britain from all over the World. In many cases because of our relationship with those countries in the past through Empire. In many cases, through our relationship with those countries who came and stood beside us in two World Wars and who speak our language. Then, we haven’t got a problem.

But if we’re talking about the encouragement of different groups within our society, within our communities. If we’re talking about the encouragement of them to be as different as possible, and not to integrate at all, then we have a problem. And actually what we’ve seen from our political leaders, in this case of radical Islam, is we have seen appeasement. We have seen gutlessness. We have seen a total failure of leadership.

I was in the car, in June, listening to a Radio 4 morning interview with the Prime Minister. And the interviewer said, well Mr Cameron, you know do we not face a real threat from Islamic State? Oh no, no, no, the Prime Minister said. You mustn’t call it ‘Islamic State,’ it’s got nothing to do with Islam! And today Theresa May, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons, in her statement responding to these appalling events in Paris, said that ISIS is nothing to do with Islam. Well I’m sorry, but again we have to be frank. Every single one of those killers believed they were doing what they were doing in the name of Islam.

And our weakness, the weakness of our leaders, has actually allowed in our country the creation of a parallel society. Tens of thousands of cases of Female Genital Mutilation performed in this country every single year. And as yet not a single person has been convicted. A blind eye turned to polygamy, to forced marriage, and now eighty percent of Muslim marriages in Britain are conducted completely outside and unregistered by UK civil law. And yet our leaders effectively aren’t brave enough to do anything.

And when I hear that there are now four hundred jihadi fighters fresh back as battle-scarred veterans from Syria living out in our communities. And yet I listen to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary who say we want to remove the passports of people who want to leave Britain to go and fight in Syria. I’m sorry, I want to remove the passports who’ve been to fight in Syria and not let them back into the country.

Just occasionally, somebody tries to do the right thing. And Michael Gove as Education Secretary took on those Trojan Horse schools in Birmingham. Began to root out some of the brainwashing of our children. But of course he must have done too good a job because he was sacked and removed, and I believe the process went into reverse.

There are things that we can do. Particularly as schools and particularly as prisons are now some of the main places in which radicalisation happens. These institutions are run by government. And if we have strong government, that radicalisation would not be allowed to happen.

But we need to do more than that. We need to start to promote our own values, unashamed of our culture, unashamed of who we are. We come from a Judeo-Christian heritage in this country. We believe in liberty. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in our presumption of innocence before guilt. We believe in our rights to trial by jury, and we believe in living in a democracy. Let’s stand up for those values. We have to say those things and we have to mean it. And unfortunately, occasionally we hear these things from our government, but sadly they don’t deliver because they don’t really mean it.

And as for Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition… well he almost sang the National Anthem the other day didn’t he? No, Mr Corbyn, who describes the death of Osama Bin Laden as a tragedy, has said today he is not comfortable with a policy of shooting to kill terrorists on British streets. There is no chance of him providing any opposition to this weak government at all.

We have got to show those young British Muslims, who are tempted by another ideology, that actually we’re a strong people. That we believe in who we are. And let’s offer them something more attractive than that poison that is being dripped in their ear.

And then of course there is much talk about military intervention. You would think that just bombing people was the answer to absolutely everything. Indeed, it was only two years ago that the British government, if you remember, wanted to arm the rebels against Assad. And luckily they were stopped from doing so. Now, they want to start bombing some of the rebels. So does that mean they’re on Assad’s side, or do we bomb him as well? I’m not sure. I’m not actually sure what we’re proposing.

We have, over the course of the last fifteen years, pursued a series of policies believing that bombing is the answer to everything. And believing that removing Arab Heads of State will somehow make those countries better, safer and stabler. I would suggest that, before we rush in to start bombing again in another country, that we actually take a long, cool, hard look at whether that policy has been successful.

And I would say that if you look at Libya for example. Where Mr Cameron and President Sarkozy were so gung-ho that they went in and removed Gaddafi. I’m not arguing that Gaddafi was a good guy. But I am arguing that actually we’ve made Syria worse and we’ve increased radicalisation. We will not beat ISIS by just bombing in Iraq and Libya.

Frankly, if we want to beat ISIS militarily, we will have to put together a grand coalition of Arab and African states. They will have to provide the troops. We will provide some of the hardware. We will provide much of the intelligence. And we would need to go in to fight them simultaneously in country after country.

But from what I can see, we’re being asked to support yet another attempt to remove an Arab leader through bombing without any such grand strategy. And that doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Going to war is the most serious thing a government can do. We should not go through that undertaking without a big long-term plan.

And we may well need to rethink who our enemies really are. Because for the last few years the West, whether it’s Obama, or France, or Britain, or our friends in the EU… and more on them in a minute. But they’ve decided that Assad and Putin are evil and that they are our enemies. I’d think we’re going to have to rethink that strategy entirely. And perhaps the tragedy in Paris will make us rethink that strategy.

Assad and Putin may not be our bosom buddies, but they are not the biggest threat we face in the World today. The biggest threat we face in the World today does come from ISIS. And on that great battle they are on the same side as us, and it’s time the government recognised that.

So as I say, we already have in this and other European countries a Fifth Column that we’ve welcomed into our country and done little to stop. But what makes me really angry, and you will have seen from some of the comments earlier that I was making in April, and May, and June, and July of this year… What makes me really angry is that the European Union’s Common Asylum Policy is taking a bad situation and making it even worse. Making it even worse, if it wasn’t bad enough for Mr Juncker to have said that anyone who sets foot on European soil can stay.

If that wasn’t bad enough then we had Mrs Merkel committing, I think, one of the most major policy errors we have seen from a European leader in modern times. Inspired, I can only assume, by some kind of wergild. And leading to a stampede. Indeed, it has led to an exodus of biblical proportions.

And yet the warnings were pretty clear. ISIS themselves have said they will use the migrant tide to flood the European continent with half a million of their jihadists. Now even if that figure’s wrong, I would suggest fifty thousand is too many. Even if only one percent of that figure is right, I would suggest five thousand is too many. I would suggest five hundred is too many. It only took eight to cause that destruction in Paris the other night, so we need to be careful.

And we were warned by Libyan government ministers. We were even warned by the Jordanians, when Mr Cameron went to visit the camp. And I have to say, at least Mr Cameron is not encouraging people coming across the Mediterranean and through the western Balkans. But when he went to visit that camp in Jordan, the Jordanian minister who showed him round said be careful Mr Cameron, because two percent of this camp are jihadists intent on getting to your country and doing harm.

We have to be careful in what we’re doing. I’ve tried again, and again, and again over the course of the last few months to argue that we must not let our compassion imperil our civilisation. I’m all for helping people where they are displaced. I’m all for helping people who are victims of war. I have no problem in re-diverting chunks of our foreign aid budget to help people in that plight.

But however difficult, however rough it is for many of these people, it is total madness to open the door and to import yet more jihadi terrorists into Europe and ultimately to Britain. And that is a reality that Mr Juncker, it would appear, has not faced up to. That Monsieur Hollande has not faced up to.  Because both of them today have said they will continue with exactly the same policy. And I think that is dangerously complacent. In fact, I think that is absolutely mad.

This dream of the free movement of people, this dream for others of the Schengen Area, hasn’t just meant the free movement of people. It’s meant the free movement of Kalashnikov rifles, it’s meant the free movement of terrorists, and it’s meant the free movement of jihadists. And it’s time that democratic movements in Britain and right across Europe stood up, and fought, and gained in strength. And said “an end to this, we want back border controls, we want back national security.”

Now interestingly, our Prime Minister last week gave his speech about his renegotiation. Of which there wasn’t very much. But what he did say was that he thought security was very important. So having discussed some pretty tough subjects, let’s just for a moment cheer ourselves up with the news that there is going to be a referendum in this country. And that we will have the chance to solve many of these problems. And in fact, let’s look at the Prime Minister’s track record on this.

(video played)

So we have a referendum. And Mr Cameron tells us that the reason we’ve got to vote to stay part of this European Union is because we’ll be safer and we’ll be more secure. Well I ask you do you, in the light of what has happened in Paris last week? Do you, in the light of the fact they’ve decided to continue the open door to the Mediterranean and the western Balkans? Do you feel safer as members of the European Union?

Or do you think, like us, that it’s time to say no? To take back control of our borders? And to make sure that never again do we have unprecedented immigration into Britain without our ability to check whether people have criminal records? Whether they have trades and skills to bring to this country? Whether they’re bringing their own medical insurance?

What I’m saying to you is that to be safer, to be more secure, we have to say no in this referendum. We have to take back control of our borders and we have to put in place an Australian-style points system so that we can choose who comes into our country.

Yes, Mr Cameron believes in security so much he mentioned it thirty-four times in his speech last week. Well let’s continue with that theme of security and this referendum. Because just a month ago, after a European summit, Mrs Merkel again made a big decision. And she’s decided to fast-track Turkey as members of the European Union.

So let’s just be clear what this means. What it means is we will open up to a country of seventy-five million who are on average even poorer than Romania and Bulgaria and Croatia, the last countries to join. There will be an open door to another seventy-five million poor people. And in terms of security, we will be in a political union with Turkey. Who of course have extensive borders with Iraq and Syria. Will we be safer and more secure in a political union with Turkey? I don’t think so.

And Mr Cameron will argue that we’ll have better economic security as part of this European Union. You see, he argues what they all argue. They argue that Britain isn’t big enough, Britain isn’t strong enough, Britain isn’t capable and able of standing on the world stage and doing things for itself. They argue that we need to be part of a bigger European club.

And this really first hit me, though that it was more than that, when last year I did those two one-hour debates with Nick Clegg. Yes, well he was very famous once, honestly. And Clegg was making the argument that we haven’t got clout on the world stage unless we’re part of the European club. We couldn’t possibly hope to negotiate our own trade agreements on our own.

And I countered Nick by saying that Iceland, with a population of less than a third of a million, had just signed off its own trade deal with China. I said it seemed to me that, if Iceland was big enough to negotiate its own trade deals on the world stage, that we were big enough to negotiate our own trade deals on the world stage.

But then I turned to Nick and I said to him it isn’t about us being big enough. I said Nick, you just don’t think we’re good enough do you? And do you know what folks, that is the truth of it. Our political class over the last few decades have lost confidence in this country, have lost confidence in our people. They don’t think we’re good enough to stand on our own two feet, to govern ourselves, to make our own laws, to make our own trade deals and to control our borders.

And my message is I think we are good enough because I believe in Britain, and I hope that you do too. And actually what they’ve done is worse than that. Because through forty years of lies and deceit they’ve actually thrown away, given away, sold the most important valuable thing that we possess as human beings. Our ability as free people to be the masters of our own destiny. To govern our own country.

Our rights of democracy and self-government are so fundamental and so important that those that went before us were prepared to risk, and in many cases sacrifice, everything they had. So that we could be born and grow up as free people. What they have done, ladies and gentlemen, is that they have literally given away our country.

And this referendum is our golden opportunity. Perhaps a once in a lifetime chance to undo the wrong that by stealth and deception has been done to us. This referendum for me above all, what I will fight on, what we will fight on, is I want my country back. We want our country back. Do you want your country back? We want our country back and it’s time to say no, thank you.