Ukip: Britain should be able to send back 'beggars or criminals' from EU

The UK should have the right not to let EU citizens stay if they “do not work, never pay taxes or are beggars or criminals”, a senior Ukip spokesman has said.

Gerard Batten, an MEP with responsibility for Ukip’s Brexit policy, suggested on Monday that the UK should have the discretion to refuse some EU citizens the right to stay and backed Theresa May’s decision not to give any guarantees without reciprocal deals from other EU countries.

He explained his hardline stance while standing next to Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leader, who relaunched the party’s Brexit policy with his predecessor, Nigel Farage, sitting in the audience.

There is consensus among many prominent Brexit campaigners – from former cabinet minister Michael Gove to Labour MP Gisela Stuart that EU citizens should be guaranteed the right to stay in the UK.

Pressed about EU citizens, Batten suggested the UK should have the right to decline to keep some people.

“What the British government should do is write to every one of the other 27 EU member states and say we will guarantee your citizens’ rights if you guarantee our citizens’ rights. So, for example, in Poland we have about 30-odd thousand people and they have about 900,000 here. So why wouldn’t they do that? But I think that is the way the government needs to approach things on a country by country basis in order to protect our citizens’ rights so we also protect their rights.

“But we must also have the right not to keep people who for example do not work, never pay taxes or are beggars or criminals. I think it is an idiotic immigration policy that says we will take anybody irrespective of what value they may or may not produce to our country.”

He said most UK citizens on the continent “are either doing skilled jobs or are retirees spending their pensions; we don’t have an equivalence”.

“We have people who work in skilled jobs obviously from the continent and people doing low-paid jobs from the continent but we also have a lot of people who don’t do any jobs. I met one of them shoplifting in my local shop on Saturday. So I think we need to look at that problem,” he added.

In the past, Batten has suggested British Muslims should sign a
“charter of understanding” and warned it was a big mistake for Europe to allow “an explosion of mosques across their land”. In his Brexit job, he advocates that the UK should leave the EU by simply repealing the 1972 European Communities Act without needing to trigger article 50.

During the speech, Nuttall set out Ukip’s six key tests for the prime minister as she takes the UK out of the EU, saying the party would be a home for the “purists” who want “real Brexit” with no payments to Brussels, full control over borders and parliamentary sovereignty by the end of 2019.

Afterwards, he was questioned repeatedly about whether the party was still relevant after Farage stood down last year and Douglas Carswell quit as its only MP this weekend saying Ukip had achieved its aims.

Arron Banks, a significant Ukip donor who has been close to Farage, has also withdrawn his support, saying he wants some of his money back and will launch a new political movement.

As Nuttall spoke, the Ukip leader was watched from the back row of the audience by Farage, who has repeatedly insisted he has retired even though he returned as Ukip leader three times after resigning in the past.

Asked whether there was a threat to his leadership from Farage making a comeback, Nuttall said: “No, I don’t think there’s any threat and I’m sure he’ll back me up on that. If they do backslide, I can guarantee Ukip will be there and Ukip will be the guard dogs of Brexit and there is only one way Ukip will go in the polls, which is up and up and up.”

Afterwards, Nuttall told the Guardian he had asked Farage to attend and wanted to keep him “front of house” for Ukip.

“Nigel is one of the best communicators in British politics, so why wouldn’t you utilise an asset like that. It its not as if I’m paranoid. I’m really relaxed about the whole situation. I want him to be on the TV, on the airwaves because when he goes out there he pushes on Ukip’s cause,” he said.

Nuttall was reluctant to set a target for how the party will do in May’s local elections, saying it would be better judged on the local election in 2018 compared with its performance in 2013.

“I’m not going to give a prediction regarding the local elections. What I will say is that in pockets where we are doing well, Ukip is strong and its vote share I predict will go up. We will be standing on a manifesto of localism,” he said.

The Ukip leader’s tests for May appeared relatively to similar to her own policies. He said the party would be watching to ensure:

• Parliament must resume its supremacy of law-making with no impediments, qualifications or restrictions on its future actions agreed in any leaving deal.

• Britain must resume full control of its immigration and asylum policies and border controls.

• Leaving the EU must involve restoring to the UK full maritime sovereignty.

• The UK must retake its seat on the World Trade Organisation and resume its sovereign right to sign trade agreements with other countries.

• There must be no final settlement payment to the EU, and no ongoing payments to the EU budget after Brexit.

• Brexit must be done and dusted before the end of 2019.