Ukip leader says women’s safety is an issue in vote on British membership, referring to New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Referendum campaigners on both sides have criticised the suggestion by Ukip leader Nigel Farage that the possibility of sex attacks on women will be the “nuclear bomb” of the EU referendum campaign.

Farage said he wanted to raise concerns over safety for women as an issue with Britain’s membership of the EU.

“The nuclear bomb this time would be about Cologne,” he said, referring to the reports in January that hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed at the German city’s central station on New Year’s Eve. “There are some very big cultural issues,” Farage said.



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Asked whether mass sex attacks like those in Cologne could occur in the UK, he said: “It depends if they get EU passports. It depends if we vote for Brexit or not. It is an issue.”

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he also called the prime minister “Dishonest Dave” and said the Conservative party leader’s integrity was being questioned.

Michael Gove, the justice secretary and a leading leave campaigner, distanced himself from Farage, declining to repeat the remarks but not explicitly condemning them. “I haven’t made remarks like that and I won’t make remarks like that,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday programme.

Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative minister campaigning for Brexit, told BBC 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “I don’t like that sort of campaigning at all. However, we know for a fact that there was an appalling experience for women over in Germany over the Christmas period. I do not approve of that sort of campaigning.

“I do not believe in outright blatant scaremongering, so I think it’s really, really regrettable. I haven’t seen it and I wouldn’t support suggesting if you vote to remain you’d be raped. Obviously that is just an outrageous thing to say.”

Sal Brinton, the president of the Liberal Democrats, said Farage had “sunk to new depths in his scaremongering” with his remarks, which were completely unacceptable.

She said: “The debate about whether Britain is better off in Europe is hugely important and should be based on the facts, not shameful attempts to stir up hatred and fear with smears like this. It is disgusting to see a politician make comments like this. He must withdraw these remarks and apologise.”

Ryan Coetzee, the director of strategy for the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, tweeted:

Ryan Coetzee (@RyanCoetzee) Disgraceful. Don't vote for this man's idea of Britain. https://t.co/ZByBZA1waA

Farage also said that voters believed the prime minister did not keep his promises to cut migration and renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership of the EU. He said: “He is ‘Dishonest Dave’. The honesty and straightforwardness of the prime minister are now being questioned.”

Jane Collins, the Ukip MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, also tweeted:

Jane Collins MEP (@Jane_CollinsMEP) Muslim men have been carrying out sex attacks in the UK for over 20 years and that threat continues with migration from Muslim countries.

In a live ITV programme on Tuesday, Farage will take questions from a studio audience on the referendum. David Cameron will also appear.

George Osborne took aim at the Ukip leader in an interview published in the Sunday Times, where the chancellor accused his Conservative colleagues on the leave side Gove and Boris Johnson, of adopting Farage’s populist tactics.

“This is a battle between Farage’s mean vision of Britain and the outward-facing, generous Britain that the mainstream of this country celebrates,” he said. “I say: we don’t want Farage’s Britain. That means voting to remain.”

It is not the first time Farage has insinuated that women would be at risk of mass sex attacks were Britain to remain in the EU, arguing in April about the dangers of living in a “Turkish-dominated Europe”.

He said: “Frankly, if we are prepared to accept, or if Germany and Sweden are prepared to accept, unlimited numbers of young males, from countries and cultures where women are at best second-class citizens then, frankly, what do you expect? None of this is going to get better because the EU now is in negotiations with Turkey and [Turkish president] Mr Erdoğan plays a clever game, doesn’t he?”

Over the weekend, Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign with Gove and Johnson at the helm, was reported to have been infiltrated by far-right activists. The Mail on Sunday reported campaigners included former BNP activists and ex-senior figures from the National Front, photographed with Vote Leave materials and pro-Brexit MPs.

Three prominent ethnic-minority politicians, Conservative MP Alok Sharma, Labour’s Chuka Umunna MP and the SNP’s Humza Yousaf, have written to Vote Leave on behalf of the Stronger In campaign to call for a “root and branch review of [the] campaigning structure at local and regional level”.

Vote Leave said there was little it could do “about undesirable characters buying our merchandise and distributing it”.



In the letter, the three politicians said that, given the seriousness of this matter, there was a “quite shocking level of complacency” from Vote Leave.

“Your campaign is being used by those with the most abhorrent views which promote racism and discrimination,” the letter continued. “We do not believe you have encouraged this but without action you will be seen as being complicit.”

Vote Leave should appoint an independent figure to review the allegations of far-right infiltrators in the movement, similar to Shami Chakrabarti’s role investigating antisemitism in Labour, the letter said.