Nigel Farage has been told he should be ‘ashamed’ for his ‘breaking point’ poster more than three years after the EU referendum as he was told he had been dishonest with the public.
Appearing on an election special Question Time programme, Farage was asked if he feels “ashamed” by the use of that poster during the EU referendum campaign.
The lady in the audience said: “Do you not feel ashamed when you stand in front of a poster that shows refugees escaping from whatever?
“The breaking point poster is what I’m talking about,” she continues.
“We can go back in history if you want to,” snapped Farage in reply.
“Do you not feel ashamed?” said the audience member. “They were refugees and you said they were illegal immigrants, and they weren’t illegal immigrants, they were refugees and they were seeking asylum. They were seeking a safe place, we have a safe place to be here.”
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As she was applauded, Farage insisted the European commission had said they did not “qualify” to be refugees.
He said they were “economic migrants”, as he asked: “Where were the women? Where were the children? Where were the elderly? It was all males, between 18 and 30, and they had left their families behind. They were economic migrants, the vast majority”.
It prompted another woman to tell him that he was “absolutely ridiculous” for what he was saying.
“That is the most disgraceful advertising – well it’s not even advertising – it is disgusting. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”
As she pointed out that net migration was much lower than he suggested, he told the lady that she “clearly had not been listening” as he went on to define the figures by his own parameters.
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It provoked the lady to say he was “very patronising as well” for his response.
But the Brexit Party, getting back to the point, went on to say: “If you want to drag on ancient history, you can. The poster, as you call it, was a photograph. It was a fact.”
However the original photograph, showing refugees crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border to a refugee camp, did show young women and families also making the journey.
At the time the photographer Jeff Mitchell said that the people in the picture had been “betrayed by UKIP” under Nigel Farage’s leadership.
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