ANY QUOTES MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, there’s a warning from the Defence Secretary this morning that a Paris style terror attack could easily he says happen in Britain as the government continues to press its case for air strikes in Syria.  Now it comes as EU leaders are meeting in Brussels today along with Turkey where they hope to sign an agreement on the migration crisis.  I am joined now by UKIPs leader, Nigel Farage, a very good morning to you Mr Farage.  Let’s just start with Syria first of all, I’ve just had the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell on the programme still opposing British military action in Syria, which I know you do as well and it is strange to find you agreeing with a man who quotes from the Little Red Book.  

NIGEL FARAGE:   Hang on a second, the Labour leadership are old fashioned pacifists, they don’t believe in military action under any circumstances.  My view is completely different, I do believe in military action, if it is going to make a difference, if it is part of a long term strategy and if it is going to be effective. What the Prime Minister and Michael Fallon are saying, the Defence Secretary, is let’s send another three jets, that’s all we’re talking about – and don’t forget this is the Conservative administration who have cut the RAF to the bone – let’s send another three jets and somehow drop a few bombs and that will save civilisation.  I’m sorry, I don’t believe that.  I’ve heard these arguments over repeated military interventions, if we want to take on ISIS militarily we’ve got to do it seriously, we’ll need significant ground troops to be provided by countries right across the Middle East  and North Africa and we’ll need to fight them simultaneously in several …

DM: Okay but if you heard that British troops were going to be part of that coalition would you be more minded to support it?  

NIGEL FARAGE:   I don't think we need … we haven’t got much of a British Army left anyway, this is not about British troops on the ground, this is about the need for troops on the ground but for those troops to be provided by countries like Iraq and Syria not to mention Yemen, not to mention Nigeria, not to mention all the different .. you know, the idea that ISIS is just in Syria …

DM: But those troops are on the ground already.  It’s interesting you mentioned Syria there, you think and a lot of other people are saying it as well, that in reality the person there with not an intact army but a fairly well trained army and still well armed, is President Assad backed by President Putin.  Would you let them do it?

NIGEL FARAGE:   Look, two years ago I was vehemently opposed to arming the rebels in Syria which is what the government wanted to do.  Thank goodness we didn’t, had we done that we would have aided the growth of ISIS.  Now here we are saying we are going to bomb ISIS but does that mean we are on the side of Assad or not?  Are we bombing Assad as well?  What I’m saying is there is no clear long term strategy in what the government is proposing.   

DM: But what do you think about that, let Assad do it backed by Putin, then we don’t get to shape what flows.  

NIGEL FARAGE:   I have taken the view for some years and I have received much vitriol from the political establishment for saying it but whatever we think of Assad, whatever we think of Putin – and I would not be inviting them round to meet mum this afternoon for tea – whatever we think of them, on the biggest threat we face, namely global Jihadism, we need to recognise that we are actually on the same side.

DM: And what do you think about that claim from the Prime Minister that there are 70,000 moderate troops there ready to fight?

NIGEL FARAGE:   Ah, so one again we are picking good guys and bad guys in Syria.  We got it horribly wrong last time and I’m not sure I believe the figure of 70,000 and it’s a big mistake to pick between good guys and bad guys.  

DM: Let’s talk about Russia, the incident with Turkey and let me ask you straight up about migration, we’re just hearing that a deal has been done between the European Union and Turkey to try to deal with the migration crisis.  You said before Paris happened that terrorists may well use that route to get people into Europe, do you feel vindicated?

NIGEL FARAGE: Well it’s not about being vindicated.

DM: Just in terms of the prediction.

NIGEL FARAGE: Look, we have already within London, Birmingham, Paris, Brussels, already we have cells within our cities of small groups of people who hate us and wish to destroy our way of life.  What we should not be doing is adding to that by having an open door to limitless numbers of people who we do not have the ability to check and what I was saying six months ago is that when ISIS themselves say they will use this route to flood Europe with their Jihadist fighters, we ought to take them seriously.  Now what is even more worrying is this, that today in Brussels the British government and all the other EU governments are meeting to discuss doing a deal with Turkey.  This isn’t just a deal to deal with migration across the Mediterranean, what Merkel is proposing is that we fast track Turkey as members of the European Union.  What that will mean is 75 million people who will have freedom of movement to come to the rest of Europe and to this country and here’s the warning, here’s the warning, a recent reputable poll showed that 8% of the Turkish population are ISIS sympathisers.  We must be literally mad to be considering getting into …

DM: Well we know about polls like that in our own country and the question marks about it but what are the implications then for refugees?  Are you saying … the Prime Minister has been quite careful about the number that UK is taking, they are vetting them, they are mainly going to be families.  Do you think that even that in itself is a wise strategy?

NIGEL FARAGE:   It is very interesting that when David Cameron, who by the way is taking a much wiser approach than Chancellor Merkel and many other European countries …

DM: Oh so he’s doing something right.  

NIGEL FARAGE: Well five out of ten, it’s better than it could have been but it’s interesting that when he went to that camp in Jordan to say these are the people that will be coming to Britain, the government minister from Jordan who was with him said that’s fine Mr Cameron but be aware that even in these camps, approximately 2% of the people are Jihadist fighters so all I would say is that the number of Syrian refugees we take, four to five thousand a year, is as nothing compared to the migration figures that we saw earlier this week.  I would just like a reassurance from our government that we are checking people thoroughly.

DM: But do you think that given what happened in Paris and given that it seems that was the route taken by some of the well trained activists who carried it out, that the whole migration, the whole refugee policy should be rethought?


NIGEL FARAGE: Well the question is, is what the EU is dong a refugee policy?  Even their own Eurostat agency is saying that fewer than one in five of the people coming into Europe would actually qualify as refugees.  What we are seeing is economic migration on an absolutely unprecedented scale and within that, I’m sorry to say, there will be some very bad people.  

DM: Other thoughts on Paris, this time on the climate change summit about to kick off, do you think it is going to achieve anything?

NIGEL FARAGE: No, nothing, absolutely nothing.  Lots of hot air.  What we’ve had, we’ve had year after year of this going on since the mid-1990s where the European Union with Britain very much at the forefront, want to show the world what wonderful people we are.  We claim we are going to be cutting carbon dioxide emissions so what we do is we lump on our industries and our domestic users, some of the most expensive energy and electricity in the world.  The net effect of all of this by the way is we have seen our manufacturing industries leave our shores, go to India and China where they are building coal fired power stations on a scale we can’t even imagine.  This country only emits 1.5% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, you will not get the Indians and the Chinese agreeing at this summit to close down their power stations.  We are beggaring our own businesses for no benefit overall environmentally whatsoever.

DM: A quick thought on the shenanigans, what’s going on within the Conservative party, allegations of bullying and intimidation within its youth wing, is there an element in you that thinks glad to see that happening in the Conservative party after all the dirt that has been thrown at my own party?

NIGEL FARAGE: I am not glad to see the suicide of a young activist whatever party they come from.

DM: Absolutely not.

NIGEL FARAGE: The whole thing is grim, nasty.  I think there’s no doubt that individual Clarke had way too much power, was given far too much free rein.  The truth of it is, the Conservative party is ageing, the average age of their membership I think is about 70, they haven’t got the people they used to have to knock on doors and deliver leaflets so when the coachloads turned up in South Thanet for argument’s sake to campaign against me, these were young activists that people like Clarke were in charge of and I think their desire to have ground troops made them turn a blind eye to some pretty bad behaviour.

DM: Nigel Farage, thank you very much indeed, the UKIP leader there.