Farage says he would scrap employment discrimination laws on race and colour

[muriel_volestrangler]

though I wonder if there's going to be a "he mis-spoke" row-back on that.

He wants to allow employers to favour British-born people, and he's saying that repeatedly. On Today, today, he said:

"What I said was that I do believe there should be a presumption for British employers in favour of them employing British people as opposed to somebody from Poland. That is exactly what I said"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31846453

In the Channel 4 Trevor Phillips documentary, he said:

Asked which legislation he would get rid of, Mr Farage responds:

"Much of it. I think the employer should be much freer to make decisions on who he or she employs. I think the situation that we now have, where an employer is not allowed to choose between a British-born person and somebody from Poland, is a ludicrous state of affairs. I think that we have taken our relationship with Europe to a level that, frankly, has gone against common sense, and certainly against self-interest."

"I would argue that the law does need changing, and that if an employer wishes to choose, or you can use the word 'discriminate' if you want to, but wishes to choose to employ a British-born person, they should be allowed to do so. … I think you should be able to choose on the basis of nationality, yes. I do."

Asked whether there would be a law against discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, Mr Farage responds:

"No…. because we take the view, we are colour-blind. We as a party are colour-blind."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-31838990

It's that last reply that is going to cause him problems, I think. He's saying it's fine for employers to discriminate on the basis of the country you're born in, or current nationality, and he would quite like that to happen. And he's then saying that he himself, and his party, wouldn't discriminate on the basis of colour, but he doesn't want laws that prevent other employers from doing so.