Nigel Farage: Raising minimum wage will attract more Romanian immgrants

Mr Farage earlier today

Nigel Farage has announced his opposition to an increase in the minimum wage because he said any rise could encourage more immigrants to come to the UK.

The Ukip leader appeared on a phone-in show on BBC Radio 5 Live, and he was asked by a caller asked whether he would raise the rate.

“There is a problem with doing that. That is that if you increase the minimum wage, you may actually even attract more migrant Labour,” he said.

“Don’t forget, the minimum wage in Britain is now nine times what it is in Romania. If you increase it even more people would want to come. I want to see the market adjust this.

“The current proposal to increase the minimum wage, which is the Labour proposal, to put it up by 2019 to about £8 an hour, I don’t think an marginal increase is really going to make a difference.”