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Ukip leader Nigel Farage has announced he will not try to abolish gay marriages.

In a dramatic change from his fierce opposition to the Bill passed last year for same-sex weddings in churches, he said gay couples who tie the knot will be accepted as lawfully married.

Mr Farage made the announcement in a Q&A session with readers of PinkNews, in which he also urged gay, lesbian and transgender people to join his party.

Gay marriages become legal on March 29 and couples are already registering to be among the first to marry. Asked if Ukip would seek to abolish marriages that take place after the new laws take effect, Mr Farage replied: “No”. He favoured French-style laws to strip church weddings of legal status, forcing all couples, gay or straight, to have a civil ceremony as well.

“We would rather the legal and religious endorsements of wedlock are separate,” he said. Mr Farage was one of the most outspoken critics of the gay marriage Bill, and the controversy led to grassroots defections to Ukip from the Conservative Party.

PinkNews publisher Benjamin Cohen said: “Having gained as much political capital as possible from opposing same-sex marriage, something he knew would happen regardless of what he did, Nigel Farage has confirmed that he will not campaign to take away the marriages of the thousands of couples who will marry before the next election.

“Such a campaign would be a disgrace in a modern society and I’m sure Ukip would never want to be accused of that.”

Mr Farage stressed in the interview that gay people were welcome in Ukip. “We have absolutely no problem with anybody, whatever group or community they come from, unless they have openly and evidently unpalatable views,” he said.

Asked about a Ukip councillor who blamed the floods on gay marriage, Mr Farage responded: “Although his comments were certainly eccentric, and to many unpalatable, they were his opinions, not the party’s and he had long been making them to his paper throughout his tenure as a councillor.”

He said Ukip could oppose foreign aid to countries which have poor records on human rights for LGBT people.

Ukip’s website still sets out the reasons for its opposition to gay marriage. It states: “We believe that the Government must not take this step too far and risk the grave harm of undermining the rights of Churches and faiths to decide for themselves who they will and will not marry.

“There is, apart from a small but noisy minority within the gay community, no strong demand for this.”