Allowing Turkey into the European Union would lead to more mass sex attacks such as those seen on the streets of Cologne, Nigel Farage warned today.
In a speech focusing on EU border controls, the Ukip leader argued the UK is in danger of living in a ‘Turkish-dominated Europe” if the country is allowed to join the European Union.
Farage also attacked people on his side of the EU Referendum debate for being too scared to talk about the impact of EU freedom of movement laws on community cohesion across the country.
Taking aim at Vote Leave – the official campaign group for Brexit of which he is not a member – the MEP said the organisation need to start “attacking the enemy’s goal.”
Speaking in Westminster this morning, Farage said: “As we saw outside that train station in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, what we saw was the mass open sexual molestation of hundreds of women appearing in public.
“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?”
After tearing into the one-in one-out Syrian refugee deal the EU struck with Turkey earlier this year, Farage said: “Now Mrs Merkel has decided that Turkey must become a member of the European Union by 2025 at the latest.
“So if you vote to Remain ladies and gentlemen, you are voting to go into a political union with Turkey. You are voting to go into a free travel area with 77 million people, and rising fast, in Turkey.
"I used to worry that we were living in an increasingly German-dominated Europe. From what I can see, it might become a Turkish-dominated Europe.”
More than 1,000 men were reported to have carried out the assaults on New Year’s Eve across Germany, with three allegations of rape in Cologne and two allegations in Hamburg.
Of the 58 arrested in connection with the attacks, 25 were Algerian, 21 were Moroccan, three were Tunisian, three were German, two were Syrian and one was Iraqi.
Just three of the 58 suspects were refugees, local public prosecutor Ulrich Bremer confirmed.
This morning, Farage further fuelled divisions between himself and official Brexit group Vote Leave.
He claimed he approached Vote Leave this weekend saying they should let “bygones be bygones” and work together.
“I’m sorry to say that every time I attempt to try and work with them I am rebuffed and rejected,” he said.
He claimed Vote Leave – which has the backing of all the Tory Cabinet ministers who want Brexit – is “a bit too Conservative focused” and was struggling to fire up the “passion” of many who want to quit the EU.
Farage added: “When you ask people who want to leave do they think we can win the referendum, the majority of them at the moment are saying ‘no’.”
Responding to his comments for Stronger In, the group campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU, Labour MP Emma Reynolds said: “In place of credible arguments on the economy, Nigel Farage and his chums on the right of the Conservative Party have resorted to nasty and factually baseless scaremongering about foreign sex offenders. It is the politics of the gutter from a campaign firmly in it.
“If we left, we’d be forced to accept a worse deal than we have now. The Leave campaign is now united in conceding that. Leaving Europe is a dangerous leap into the dark and would put Britain’s economy and British jobs on the line. It’s a risk we can’t afford to take”.