U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Charleston, West Virginia | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Brexit group’s Donald Trump video ‘xenophobic’ Leave.EU group posts clip in which American tycoon speaks about a ‘vicious snake’ over images of migrants.

A video posted online by a pro-Brexit group with a voice-over from Donald Trump that appears to liken migrants to a "vicious snake" has been condemned for being xenophobic.

The video was posted on Facebook by the group Leave.EU, which is backed by United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, alongside a message saying: “Donald Trump’s take on immigration … Vote to Leave the vicious snake that is the EU on June 23.”

Over footage of crowds of migrants in France, Greece and Hungary, Trump is heard reciting the lyrics to The Snake, a 1968 song by Al Wilson, that tells the story of a woman who takes in an injured snake and takes care of it, only to be fatally bitten by the creature.

The final line is: "You knew damn well I was a snake when you took me in."

Trump read out the song lyrics during a campaign rally in Ohio in March. The video was not made by Leave.EU but was promoted by the group on social media.

British MPs from all sides criticized the video.

A letter signed by leading Remain campaigners says: “I am writing to urge you to publicly condemn the latest Leave.EU video and join me in calling for it to be withdrawn. If you do not, people will conclude that Vote Leave is complicit in a campaign that is increasingly inflammatory in tone. Depicting whole nationalities negatively to a Donald Trump voice-over — a man whose immigration policy is to ‘build a wall’ — is surely beneath us all … Border control and the economic implications of immigration are rightly central to this debate over Britain and Europe, but this early and ugly descent in to xenophobia must be stopped.”

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