Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and political commentator Katie Hopkins have voiced their support for US President Donald Trump’s immigration ban on citizens from seven Muslim countries.
The policy, which has been dubbed #MuslimBan on social media, has proved controversial in the UK, with over a million British people signing a petition to ban the US president from entering the country until the restrictions are lifted.
Farage and Hopkins, however, have said they approve of the policy of “extreme vetting,” calling for similar measures to be implemented in the UK.
“He was elected to get tough, he was elected to say he will do everything within his power to protect America from infiltration by ISIS [Islamic State] terrorists,” Farage said on the BBC’s Sunday Politics show.
“Now there are seven countries on that list, he is entitled to do this, he was voted in on this.
“He is fully entitled to do this, and as far as we are concerned in this country, yes I would like to see extreme vetting.”
The travel ban currently affects Libyan, Sudanese, Somali, Yemeni, Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian citizens, as well as US nationals holding dual citizenship with any of these countries.
Farage believes the ban will prevent Muslim extremists from entering the United States and that the British government should do the same for the sake of its own national security. Although he once agreed Syrian refugees should be allowed into the UK, he now backs Trump’s initiative.
“When you've got a problem already, why on Earth would you wish to add to it?” he said.
“I would remind you that of the eight people who committed those atrocities in Paris, five of them had got into Europe posing as refugees. So, there is an issue here.”
Fellow long-time Trump apostle Katie Hopkins was also quick to leap to the defense of the ban, launching a diatribe against Muslim refugees in Christian nations on her LBC radio show on Sunday.
“I am hand-in-hand with Donald Trump on this policy,” she told listeners during the call-in show.
“What good is a moral high ground when people in Europe are being blown up?”
She was criticized by hundreds of social media users, including Broadchurch and Victoria actress Eve Myles, who called Hopkins an “utter pr*ck” on Twitter.