Outcry after Nigel Farage calls for migrants with HIV to be banned from the UK

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UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been accused of “wilful ignorance”, after he called for a blanket ban on people with HIV entering the UK.

The politician has been condemned by several figures, after he said he would limit entry to the UK to: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start. And people with a skill.”

The comments came on the same day as by-elections in Clacton – where Douglas Carswell became UKIP’s first elected MP – and in Heywood and Middleton, where UKIP came within 600 votes of ousting Labour.

He was condemned by Labour’s Chris Bryant, who labelled the comment “nasty”, and MP David Lammy, who accused him of “trying to revive the very worst bigotry of the 80s”.

Yusef Azad of the National AIDS Trust said: “Nigel Farage’s comments on banning people with HIV from migrating to the UK are both ignorant and discriminatory.

“If Mr Farage believes a migrant with HIV cannot make a net contribution to our society, he believes the same about UK-born citizens with HIV.

“That is factually incorrect and deeply stigmatising. To call for entry bans, to lump people with HIV in with criminals, to describe HIV as simply as a ‘life-threatening disease’ are relics from the bad-old days of AIDS panic.

“They don’t contain the spread of HIV, they drive the spread of HIV.”

He was also condemned across social media for the comments, with figures including journalist Owen Jones and Eggheads star CJ de Mooi.

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