A student has attacked Nigel Farage’s claim that Britain is at risk from sex attacks by migrants during an EU debate.
Speaking with just weeks to go until the historic vote on the future of the UK's relationship with the EU, the Ukip leader said the issue could be the "nuclear bomb" of the EU referendum campaign.
Mr Farage made the comments in a Sunday Telegraph interview, in which he was asked about sex attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve.
However, speaking at a Buzzfeed EU referendum debate on Facebook Live, audience member Dinah slammed Mr Farage's comments. She said that Britain already had a huge problem with sexual violence against women, and that the majority of the men accused of sexually assaulting and robbing over 1,000 women in the western German city were citizens rather than recent refugees.
“And second, you say that like England isn’t already in the top five for rape statistics in the world without those migrants coming in”, she continued.
“You can’t blame it on the migrants when people get sexually harassed every single day in the streets.
“If you ask every single woman here she could tell you about 100 incidents”.
Mr Farage insisted his comments about migrant rape were taken out of context.
He said the Sunday Telegraph had asked him whether the attacks were the “nuclear bomb” of the campaign and he had said it “could be”.
“I said it could be a nuclear bomb and it is an issue. That’s it. That’s all I said”, he insisted “It is a big issue in Germany and in Sweden but thankfully it is not a big deal here”.
“This is a big issue in Germany. It’s a big issue in Sweden.
“The mayors in northern Sweden say to women not to go out at night unaccompanied.
“These are big issues in those countries in Europe who have taken in a big influx of young, single, unaccompanied men who have come from countries where women aren’t even second class citizens”.
He said it was not “a major issue” for the UK while it is not part of the Schengen area but could be in the future.
He believes the issue of migrant rape was something people will decide to vote on and claimed that it was about “standing up to the Establishment” as the “single market is a big cartel that only benefits giant multinationals”.
If Britain votes to leave on 23 June, Mr Farage claimed there will be a “domino effect” and “the Dutch will vote for Dexit and the Netherlands will vote for Nexit”.
