British far-right MEP says EU should sink immigrant boats
AFP
LONDON - The leader of the far-right British National Party, recently elected to the European Parliament, said Wednesday that the EU should sink boats carrying African immigrants trying to reach the continent.
Nick Griffin, one of two BNP members elected to the Brussels parliament in May, told the BBC that those on board would be thrown a life raft, but insisted only drastic action could stop Europe being "swamped by the Third World."
"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats.
"Anyone coming up with measures like that (in the EU) we'll support, but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe, we will oppose."
He denied advocating that anyone should be "murdered at sea," saying: "They can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya.
"But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or it's simply going to be swamped by the Third World."
More than 67,000 people crossed the Mediterranean Sea to seek asylum in Europe in 2008, half of them arriving in Italy and Malta, according to figures released January by the United Nations' refugee agency.
The BNP calls for an immediate halt to immigration to Britain, and the "voluntary resettlement" of those who are already here to their countries of ethnic origin.
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