A UKIP candidate for next year’s Euro elections has enraged migrants’ groups by claiming the “native Welsh” will be outnumbered in two decades.
James Cole, who is second on the list of Ukip candidates in Wales, was accused of “blatant scapegoating” and “migrant bashing” after uploading a clip on to YouTube in which he also claims migrants are taking Welsh people’s jobs.
One group representing migrants urged Ukip leader Nigel Farage to condemn the remarks, accusing Mr Cole of having “little sense of what’s myth and what’s truth”.
Mr Farage has already come under pressure because of blundering MEP candidates – with Yorkshire and the Humber MEP Godfrey Bloom coming under fire for calling for an end to aid to “Bongo Bongo land” and, in separate comments, suggesting women were better off in the kitchen than men and worse at reversing a car.
But his party has been riding high in the polls, with two Welsh ones in recent months suggesting it could make an electoral breakthrough in national elections for the first time in the general election in 2015 and Assembly elections in 2016.
To elect two MEPs in Wales, it would need a dramatic increase in its vote from the 12.8% share it received in 2009 to elect its sole MEP, John Bufton.
Welcoming viewers to the “land of his forefathers” in the video, Mr Cole, from Swansea, tells viewers that his core values were “openness and honesty”, claiming Mr Farage was the only political leader to share them.
He added: “Unfortunately, the native Welsh will be a minority in their own country within the next 15 to 20 years. And why? It’s due to the immigration levels into this country.”
Nearly two-thirds of Wales’ population of three million stated their national identity as Welsh in the 2011 Census, with non-white (including mixed) ethnic groups making up only 4% of the population in 2011.
Official figures also show that Wales saw its first net outflow of international migrants since 1993 in the last census year – with those leaving outnumbering those coming in by around 1,500.
A spokesman for the Migrants Rights Network said: “Mr Cole is doing a huge disservice to the Welsh people who have been welcoming new members into their communities for centuries. Considering how only 7.2% of Swansea is foreign-born, he has little sense of what’s myth and what’s truth.
“The leader of Ukip Mr Farage should come out and condemn this blatant scapegoating of migrants.”
A spokeswoman for the group Displaced People In Action, which represents asylum seekers and refugees in Wales, said the asylum and immigration debate was “frequently misinformed and based on assumption rather than fact” and that migrants made an “enormous contribution” to Wales.
Chief officer for DPIA, Siân Summers-Rees, said: “DPIA think it is important that politicians, and anybody else discussing asylum and immigration, should be able to do so in a calm and sensitive way, using facts and figures, not using myths and scare stories.
“The Welsh public deserve to have the correct facts and figures on migration into Wales and as the census figures show, it is factually incorrect to state that the ‘native Welsh’ will be in the minority within the next two decades.”
Mr Cole said: “I do not have any of the stereotypes people put upon Ukip – whether it is about religion, race or sexuality.
“I have a nephew born from a Saudi father and another nephew who is gay. I do believe changes need to be made in the system of UK asylum. I believe that British people should be offered British job opportunities first – and that is not a racist point of view.
“I once had to wait for six months to go and work on a project in Australia – and I have no problem with that. They make sure 75% of work goes to Australians and I had to prove there was no one locally who could do a better job than me. I think that’s a great system, because it is giving local people employment and they only employ a foreign person when it is the better option.”
