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Farage: I was right to call migrant crossings an invasion
Nigel Farage has said he was “right to use the word invasion” to refer to immigrants arriving in the UK.
Mr Farage drew backlash from charities and anti-racism campaigners in 2020 when he used the term to describe a group of children and adults getting out of a dinghy on a beach in Kent.
But speaking at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool on Thursday evening, the Reform UK leader claimed he had been proven right.
“I used a very naughty word, an unforgivable word, I said this would lead to an invasion,” he told the crowd. “You would have thought I’d advocated killing the first-born.
“But 4,000 boats and 127,000 people later, I think I was right to use the word ‘invasion’ because that is what this is.”
The speech at the seafront hotel marked the finale of Mr Farage’s tour of north-west England as he looks to win over voters in a typical Tory heartland.
Blackpool North and Cleveleys, the constituency where the speech took place, has been held by the Tories since 2010.
Mr Farage walked onto the stage as Eminem’s ‘Guess Who’s Back’ blared loudly from speakers and received rapturous applause throughout his hour-long speech.
In it, he claimed that the Conservatives had “breached the trust” of voters over immigration.
