Nigel Farage says UK should ban HIV-positive migrants

Nigel Farage has been criticised for suggesting that migrants with HIV should be banned from entering Britain.

The UK's oldest HIV/Aids charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, said the Ukip leader should feel "truly ashamed" of both himself and his comments which displayed "an outrageous lack of understanding" of an extremely sensitive issue.

Farage made his comments in Newsweek as polls for the Clacton and Heywood and Middleton by-elections closed.

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"Ukip want to control the quantity and quality of people who come," he said. When asked to elaborate on what that meant, the Ukip leader replied: "People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That's a good start. And people with a skill."

Rosemarie Gillespie, chief executive at the Terrence Higgins Trust told the Daily Mail: "The idea that having HIV should be used as a black mark against one's name is ridiculous, and shows an outrageous lack of understanding of the issue. It is to the UK's credit that for more than three decades successive governments, no matter their political stamp, have refused to put in place border controls against people with HIV.

"In bracketing those living with the condition with murderers and suggesting there is no place for them in his vision of Britain, Mr Farage has stooped to a new level of ignorance. He should be ashamed."

Criticism of the Ukip's leader's comments came from both major parties. Labour MP Pamela Nash was among those expressing their opposition on Twitter:

Another Labour MP David Lammy said Farage was "trying to revive the very worst bigotry" of the 1980s, while Andrew Percy, a Conservative member of the health select committee said: "This is a despicable thing to say given that we've spent decades trying to remove the stigma from the disease."

Defending his comments on Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Farage suggested that other countries excluded people with HIV.

"We should do what America does, what Australia does, what every country in the world does," he said. "We want people who have trade and skills. But we do not want people with criminal records and we cannot afford to have people with life-threatening diseases."

Between 1987 and 2010 the US denied entry to anyone who was HIV-positive. It now has no blanket ban, although the country asks visitors to disclose their HIV status and Farage said that those with the virus would be required to take out health insurance.

However, Tory MP Henry Smith suggested that the Ukip leader's comments were more about gaining attention than setting long-term policy. "It's official - Nigel Farage doesn't care about the long–term future of our country," he told The Guardian. "All he's interested in is the next publicity stunt. With offensive gimmicks like this he's shown he has no credible plan to tackle the uncontrolled mess that Labour left our immigration system in."