On Friday the 17th of April 2015 the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) held a public meeting in Cambridge. One of their star speakers was Nick Clarke, who just three days before had defected to UKIP from the Conservatives. Clarke had recently served as chair of Cambridge’s Conservative association and as leader of Cambridgeshire County Council so is a high profile local figure.

A few minutes into his speech Nick Clarke said he wanted the UK to send people it doesn’t want home. Clarke also suggested he’d treat the country as he does a party at his house when it comes to deciding who to tell it was time to go home.

Mr Clarke said:

We need to be able to attract people that we want; and we need to send home people that we don’t want. That is a perfectly reasonable position to take and one I adopt in my own home when I get fed up with people at my parties sometimes.

Clarke’s comments resulted in stunned silence in the room where the audience was largely made up of UKIP members and sympathisers.

Only when one of those present expressed a concern that Nick Clarke’s comments would end up reported in the newspapers the next day, misrepresenting UKIP policy did he clarify them.

Cambridge’s UKIP Candidate Patrick O’Flynn rescued Mr Clarke and explained that UKIP’s policy was not to send anyone currently legally in the UK home as a result of their proposed changes to immigration law (with the exception of criminals).

It appears that UKIP may have been a bit too hasty to get their new recruit up on their stage. I am still unsure if Mr Clarke made a mistake or if he was unaware of this aspect of UKIP’s position and if he thought he had joined a party which wants to send the unwanted home.

I spoke to Mr Clarke after the meeting and he was adamant he had understood UKIP’s policies prior to making his speech but had just misspoken.

Mr Clarke’s gaff has echoes of an almost identical incident where another ex-Conservative Mark Reckless reportedly said something similar soon after defecting to UKIP.

Clarke has published what he had planned to say. The published speech does not contain the contentious section.

After the remarks and before the clarification was issued I was preparing to ask Mr Clarke about what threshold he would like to see for sending those from other countries home; if there would be a minimum required income level for example and if so how he’d approach those who became ill.

Full Transcript

Nick Clarke: We need to be able to attract people that we want; and we need to send home people that we don’t want. That is a perfectly reasonable position to take and one I adopt in my own home when I get fed up with people at my parties sometimes.

Public Speaker: I’d ask Nick to clarify something that he said. It maybe a bit pedantic of me but you did say when you were talking about immigration that we should send people home who we didn’t want. Now I’d hate to see you make the front page of the Guardian tomorrow so could you just reassure me that you meant that we would have the right to refuse entry to people that we didn’t want and you didn’t mean we would send people home who are here quite legally.

Nick Clarke: Thank you for the chance to clarify that. This is about getting people to come to this country legally and I’m quite clear about that from all across the world. I have no inclination nor should anybody look at retrospectively at sending anybody home and if I’ve given that perception in any way or fashion then I apologise. It is not my intention.

Public Speaker: I’m sure it is just a slip.

Patrick O’Flynn: Can I just re-iterate it is not UKIP’s policy at all to send back anyone who came here legally and who has been obeying our laws but I should say that by getting out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights that will assist us in sending home a particular group of people that I don’t think we make any apology for wanting to send home and that’s the foreign criminals and preachers of hate who’ve been here for far too long.

Given the context of the comments there was no suggestion Mr Clarke was referring to criminals when he mentioned “people that we don’t want”, he appeared to be suggesting he was referring to those who don’t meet the criteria in an Australian like points based system.

My Views

• I agree with UKIP in that I think the UK ought have a global approach to immigration and border control with the same criteria applied to people wherever they come from in the world. (Permitting risk based differentiation of visa requirements and level of scrutiny for those from different countries).
• I think we ought have a relatively low bar to immigration into the UK but need to ensure that the opportunities, currently exploited by a small minority of people, to unfairly and immorally take advantage of the UK’s social security and health system are removed. The bar should be set so as to provide an assurance that individuals, or families, moving to the UK are in a position to make a substantially positive contribution to the life of the nation, the economy and public finances. There should be no restrictions on students, other self-supporting people, or those with work to come to.
• There are challenges with the provision of housing, transport, healthcare, education and public services to an increasing population, but we need to tackle those challenges for the existing population too. Immigration is responsible for about 30% of our population growth but the challenges to, for example, healthcare are due to an ageing population and immigration can assist us adapt to that.
• As is currently the case those who’ve spent the last five years in the UK should be able to become a British Citizen; those eligible for citizenship ought be permitted to remain in the UK but others who would no longer be eligible to enter, and have become reliant on public support, should, after a period of grace, and with sensitivity to illness etc, be required to leave.