Farage likens himself to Henry VIII rather than Trump but admits to similarities between their concerns and says immigration debate will focus on threat of Isis

Nigel Farage has said that he shares concerns about an out-of-touch political class with the controversial Republican Donald Trump, during a speech in the US in which the Ukip leader also warned about the security risk posed by immigrants.

Farage made the comments at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Washington DC, where he was asked whether he accepted the idea of himself as a “British Donald Trump”.

“In terms of Donald Trump, I would avoid any comparison but I like to think of myself as the updated Henry VIII,” he said.

But he then added: “I do think some of the things he’s picked up on in the last few weeks are very similar to the kind of things we’ve picked up on in British politics – the feeling that there is a centralised bureaucracy in Washington, maybe not connecting with some of the concerns of ordinary people.”

Trump, who is running to be the Republican presidential candidate, attracted comparisons with Farage after causing controversy by suggesting that Mexican immigrants include rapists and that they bring drugs and crime to the US.

During the British election campaign, Farage was criticised for proposing a ban on immigrants with HIV entering the country.



In his speech, Farage intensified some of his previous warnings about immigration to the UK, saying Europe was facing an influx of “genuinely Old Testament, biblical proportions”.

Farage then suggested the debate about immigration would move from one about culture and economics to the problem of security.

He said: “What we’re facing coming across the Mediterranean ... is potentially millions of people coming across. That in itself is a problem. But there is a potentially bigger problem still. We have no means, no ability, of checking criminal records or checking political or religious associations of any of these people.

“When IS [Islamic State] say they will use this crisis to flood Europe with their own jihadists, I suspect we should believe them,” he said.

“The whole debate about immigration, given that we have an open door to Bulgaria and Romania, people whose minimum wages are 10 times lower than ours, has been about money and the shape of communities. But the debate about immigration, in Europe certainly, is going to get on to security.”

Most of Farage’s speech was focused on arguing against Britain’s membership of the EU and calling on Americans for their support in this aim.



But he also made two jibes about the Scottish National party, twice describing Nicola Sturgeon as “that ghastly woman north of Hadrian’s wall” and her party as one that was “both nationalist and socialist” – in a reference to the party name of the Nazis.