Farage: Immigration targets not achievable with EU membership
Prime Minister David Cameron has been accused of misleading the British public with pledges to cap immigration to the tens of thousands by UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
Speaking at an immigration poster campaign launch in Dover, he claimed that the UK's EU membership would continue to hamper efforts to cut immigration figures and called for an “honest debate” on the subject.
When Cameron made that promise he was being willfully dishonest.
Cameron promised to slash the number of migrants coming to the UL to levels last seen in the 1990s, but net migration rose to 298,000 for the year ending September 2014, higher than when he came into office.
"When Cameron made that promise he was being willfully dishonest,” Farage said.
"Because he knew the truth and I think now the British public, five years on, know the truth: that you actually cannot have an immigration policy, you can't set targets of any kind at all, you can't attempt to control who comes into Britain all the while you're members of the European Union," he added.
Despite previously dismissing any kind of numerical target, Farage said net immigration should be cut to around 30,000 people per year, a figure he referred to as “a return to normality”.
Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative candidate in Dover, attacked UKIP for failing to pin down immigration policy details.
"All we've seen from UKIP on immigration is chaos and confusion: one minute there's a cap, then there's not. Mark Reckless says certain migrants should be repatriated, then Farage says they're welcome to stay," he said.
Immigration and EU membership are set to be two of the most contentious issues in the upcoming general election.