'I don't like your tone Mr Farage': Tory minister launches devastating attack on UKIP leader putting 'fear in people's hearts' about immigration

 

• Anna Soubry tears into UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage
• The pair clashed on BBC's Question Time over immigration controls
• Defence minister says UKIP spread prejudice about eastern Europeans

By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been accused of putting ‘fear in people’s hearts’ by scaremongering about immigration in a ferocious attack by a Tory minister.
Anna Soubry told Mr Farage 'I don't like your tone' and accused him of spreading ‘prejudice’ instead of using facts.
The outspoken defence minister also appeared to draw parallels between UKIP and the rise of fascism, claiming Mr Farage was using tough economic times to ‘turn to the stranger and you blame them’.

 

Row: The pair exchanged verbal blows during a heated episode of BBC's Question Time from Boston in Lincolnshire

The extraordinary criticism from one of the Tory party’s rising stars will alarm strategists who had warned against alienating disaffected voters who had switched to the UK Independence Party.
David Cameron has been careful not to repeat his 2006 claim that UKIP is a ‘bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists’, insisting he will now not ‘insult’ those who have chosen to support the anti-EU party.

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There was anger in Downing Street when veteran Cabinet minister Kenneth Clarke suggested some UKIP politicians are racists and its members are 'clowns'.
His remarks, which came just days before the local elections in May, which saw huge gains for Mr Farage's party, were disowned by colleagues.
However, appearing on BBC’s Question Time last night Ms Soubry tore into Mr Farage’s populist anti-immigration rhetoric.
She said: ‘I don't like your tone, Mr Farage. You do not talk facts. You talk prejudice. That’s what you talk. You scaremonger and you put fear in people’s hearts.

‘You do not talk facts. You talk prejudice. You scaremonger and you put fear in people’s hearts.

Tory minister Anna Soubry

‘Look, times are tough. We know that. But when times are tough, there’s a danger and history tells us when things are not good, you turn to the stranger and you blame them.
‘And you shouldn’t. That is wrong. And I’m proud of our country’s history and I’m proud that people come here.’
The searing critique came after Mr Farage again warned of the threat of an influx of Romanians and Bulgarians into the UK when working restrictions are lifted next year.
He said he warned about a similar increase in immigration from Poland a decade ago.
The Labour government predicted a population increase of 13,000 people per year, he said.
‘I said that was nonsense because logic said if you extend to poor people the ability to come to a rich country they’ll come in huge numbers. And in the first two years, 800,000 people came. That…is a fact.’

But during angry exchanges, a member of the audience accused him of ‘bandying about figures’ and ‘scaremongering’.

The government has refused to provide an official estimate for the number of people expected to come from Bulgaira and Romania, but privately expect it to be much lower than those from Poland because Britain is among the last countries to lift the restrictions.
Ms Soubry said: ‘People come here to work. They come to Boston to work and they work in the fields as you know. They pick the vegetables.
‘The real debate is about why there are so many people in our country who choose not to work. I don’t like your tone Mr Farage.
‘You talk about facts – in my constituency your party put out a leaflet saying 29 million people from Romania and Bulgaria were going to flood into our country. The population is only 27.5 million of the two of them.’
But Mr Farage insisted young people in Britain were unable to find jobs because wages had been undercut by migrant workers.