The BBC carries a brief tv interview with Nick Griffin in which he states that EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering .
In an interview with this week's edition of BBC Parliament's The Record Europe, he said:
"If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that. But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over.
"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe' we will oppose."
The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."
Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya. But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World."
Libya is a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe. Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before.
There’s no denying that illegal immigration is a concern and action that targets the vultures that prey on the hopes of desperate people gets my support. After all the traffickers have no concern for their charges except to extort huge sums of cash out of them. That said, what Griffin advocates is a disgrace. How many illegal immigrants will drown if their boats were sunk by some EU backed force? But then I daresay Griffin’s view would centre about omelettes and eggs.
If there is something that should be blown out of the water it’s Griffin’s idiotic suggestion
