Nigel Farage fumes ‘addiction to cheap labour has made UK poorer’ in explosive BBC QT rant
The former Brexit Party leader spoke out about soaring immigration during his appearance on BBC Question Time.
Nigel Farage let rip on BBC Question Time at the UK’s “addiction to cheap labour” from overseas, claiming it has made the country poorer.
The honorary president of Reform UK spoke at length about the pressures soaring migration has put on Britain after a furious spat with fellow guest Piers Morgan about the benefits of Brexit.
The TalkTV host called for “another referendum” on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, but Mr Farage countered that people voted for Brexit for “getting back control of our lives”.
Question Time: Piers and Farage clash over Brexit referendum debate
He said controlling the country’s borders was “the single most important part” of leaving and ranted about how “Labour opened the door in the most incredible way” to mass migration.
Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce pointed out that many of those coming to the UK are being “invited over”, with about 40 percent of non-EU arrivals on work-related visas.
But the former Brexit Party leader shot back: “Big business in this country has an addiction to cheap labour.
“We’ve driven down wages for working people in this country.”
Referring to a Reform UK policy to slash migration, he said: “We’ve put in place an idea today to say that for employers, it would be cheaper for them to employ British people rather than foreign people to try to encourage them.
“We’ve got millions of people of working age in Britain not working. We have to find a way of getting those people to work.
“But I tell you what, this addiction to cheap labour has actually made us as a country poorer and it’s worth remembering that. It’s not working.”
Mr Farage was making his 37th appearance on the BBC programme after a break of several years on the show.
His appearance alongside Mr Morgan was always going to be explosive. The pair have a long-running feud after Mr Farage reportedly passed Donald Trump a dossier of unpleasant things the former newspaper editor had said about the ex-US president.
Mr Morgan claimed it was designed to scupper an interview he had with Mr Trump and called Mr Farage a “weasel”.
The former Good Morning Britain host taunted the Brexiteer for not standing in the upcoming General Election, saying: “You’ve bottled it mate.”
