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Nigel Farage feared photos of a drowned refugee boy that shocked the world would turn voters soft on immigration, a former aide claims.

The UKIP boss was allegedly concerned how the image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi dead on a Turkish beach would touch Britain’s charitable nature and stop his arguments being heard.

And months later he allegedly saw a big propaganda coup in unproven claims that migrants had carried out New Year sex attacks in the German city of Cologne.

The claims against Mr Farage were made by Sarinder Joshua Duroch, who worked as an adviser to him for over a year in the European Parliament before quitting UKIP in disgust.

Mr Duroch, 43, said: “The tragic death of Aylan was a serious problem for UKIP. I was called into a room with Mr Farage and three others. They had the pictures of the child dead on the beach.

Read more:UKIP mist clean up its act

(Image: Reuters)

“Mr Farage was very perturbed – but not because of the death of the child.

“He was more perturbed with the fact that the British public might be going soft on immigration and that his arguments may no longer be listened to.

“Mr Farage suggested we had a problem because even the newspapers that were normally sympathetic to him were covering the story.

“He said, ‘We need to manage this’. He said he knew Britain really is a charitable country and does have a heart – and that the images were not doing him any good.

(Image: Getty)

“He asked me to give him the statistics on how many refugees from different parts of the world were coming into the UK. I think he was trying to work out how many Syrian refugees he could get away with saying we could let in.

“He really feared the British people were going soft on immigration.”

But there would soon be a news story that Mr Duroch claims was more suited Mr Farage’s campaign to persuade Brits to back his Leave EU campaign.

In January reports emerged that up to 1,000 women had been sexually assaulted in Cologne last New Year’s Eve. It was claimed that many of the perpetrators appeared to be of North African or Arab descent.

(Image: PA)

“Amongst the majority of Nigel Farage’s staff out in Brussels and Strasbourg, Cologne was the benchmark of raising awareness of the political agenda they wished to push,” Mr Duroch said.

“They did not seem to want to let go of the issue. He tried to use the situation to support the ideal that we as a nation steeped in Christian western ideals were being invaded by these people of Islamic origin.

“I noticed a huge amount of bitterness towards Islam, and I witnessed plenty of antisemitism too.”

Mr Duroch, whose grandparents were from India, told of his first encounter with UKIP Chief Whip Stewart Agnew when he arrived in Brussels in January last year.

“I was almost immediately asked whether I was a Muslim,” he said. “I was quite regularly asked that. When I said I was not, this often wasn’t enough.

“I was asked where my middle name Joshua came from. I said I ‘d been baptised a Roman Catholic – but it was then suggested that maybe I was half-Muslim.”

Mr Duroch stood on stage with Mr Farage and several other ethnic minority UKIP members for the launch of the party’s EU campaign in 2014. He said Mr Farage did not agree with the stunt, which he considered positive discrimination.

Mr Duroch said: “That day was very much the work of UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe. He said it was our chance to prove those calling us racist were wrong.”

Mr Duroch told of one meeting with Mr Farage’s deputy Paul Nuttall, MEP for the North West, who said UKIP would stand in the Oldham West and Royton by-election in December 2015 even though they had no chance of winning.

“Mr Nuttall told me that because there were a lot of Pakistani and Bangladeshi born people living there, we just had to stand,” he said.

“We knew we’d get a bloody good hiding in the election but we needed to be there to convince the white working class vote there was this foreign enemy living among them.”

In Brussels Mr Duroch came into contact with other far-right parties in the Europe Freedom Direct Democracy group led by Farage.

The breaking point was when he claims Carl Joel Ankar, a Swedish assistant at the EFDD, used insulting references about him.Mr Duroch filed an official complaint about the alleged incident, which Mr Ankar denied, to the head of the EFDD, then claims he found himself sidelined by most of his party.

He believes the £5.6million income paid by the Swedish Democrats into the EFDD was under threat if he pursued his complaint against Mr Ankar. Mr Duroch quit in March and returned to Kent, where he had been secretary of UKIP’s Gravesend branch. He said: “I’d like to make an apology that I was ever part of UKIP. The real proof of the party’s antics are in Brussels where one can see their machine in operation.”

(Image: eyevine)

UKIP said last night: “Mr Duroch is a discredited and disgruntled former member of staff. The event he alleges with a Swedish adviser did not happen.

“This is attested by two independent witnesses.”

They also denied the allegations of antisemitism and Mr Farage’s reaction to the death of Aylan.

A spokesman for Paul Nuttall said: “The allegation against Paul regarding the Oldham West and Royton by-election is preposterous hearsay. It simply didn’t happen.”