Farage calls for prosecution of charities aiding asylum seekers

Farage spoke with podcaster who wrote for rightwing US outlets

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has called for charities and volunteers who help asylum seekers reach the United Kingdom to face criminal prosecution, according to The Guardian. Farage made the comments in an interview with Benny Johnson, a podcaster who has previously written for a series of rightwing US outlets, including Breitbart News, but did not specify which organizations should be targeted.

Asked by Johnson whether he believed in “criminal penalties for those who facilitated this invasion of the English Isles,” Farage replied: “Totally, totally. The role of the NGOs, the role of those that are sponsored by taxpayers’ money, because they’re nice, they’re good, they’re kind. They have actually aided and abetted criminality in absolutely every way.”

Farage said of those involved: “These are people [who are] are deluded – deluded, hard-left socialist Marxists, who don’t believe in countries, don’t believe in borders, don’t believe in identities, are intent on destroying everything that exists.”

While Farage did not name specific organizations, he and other senior Reform figures have been heavily critical of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which has faced a campaign of intimidation for its work rescuing asylum seekers in the English Channel. Rescue work with asylum seekers represents a small proportion of the RNLI’s overall lifesaving operations.

Farage has previously described the RNLI as a “migrant taxi service.” Other Reform figures have criticized the charity, including sharing footage of far-right protestors abusing RNLI crews bringing people ashore, according to The Guardian.

A Reform spokesperson told The Guardian that Farage’s comments “speak for themselves.”

The Guardian reported that Farage’s call for charities and campaign groups to be prosecuted has “echoes of the efforts by the former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to try to cement his grip on power.”

During the interview, Farage characterized the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats as “literally an invasion of people who could cause us enormous harm.”

Farage repeatedly raised what he said was the issue of Muslim asylum seekers arriving in the UK, citing what he described as the example of Michigan, the US state where rightwing agitators have sought to whip up anti-Muslim feeling, according to The Guardian.

“We are importing into our countries … people who will do us enormous harm, who will change, disrupt our lives in every way, in fact make our way of life potentially unrecognisable,” Farage said.

Farage said European countries including the UK and France had a greater problem with migration than the United States, and warned that if Donald Trump were followed in office by a “weak politician” who did not tackle migration and stand up for “American, English-speaking Christian values,” the consequences would be dire.

“If we don’t, this show of yours will be illegal in five or 10 years time. Literally, you’ll be banned for hate speech,” Farage told Johnson.

Elsewhere in the interview, Farage speculated that five UK nationals arrested near RAF Fairford late last month before being bailed had been undertaking “a dummy run for a proper terrorist attack on UK forces.”

“I’m deeply, deeply shocked that they’re out on bail whilst there are other people in this country who have said things that the establishment now thinks are racist, who are held inside behind bars without without frankly, proper charge. So It’s what we call here two tier policing,” Farage said.

The Guardian reported that Farage “has a habit of sometimes making his message more robust for rightwing US audiences.” Farage has previously appeared several times on the web TV show hosted by the disgraced far-right pundit Alex Jones, who was sued by bereaved parents of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones said had been a hoax.

Farage has also been criticized by some Jewish groups for using US interviews to discuss tropes and conspiracy theories associated with the far right and antisemitism, according to The Guardian.