Nigel Farage said 27,000 people would have passed his points
system in 2014 - but that exceptions would have been made to grant visas to
nurses
UKIP would cut the numbers allowed into the UK to work but
would not set an annual target, Nigel Farage said.
The party wants immigration to return to normal" levels,
said Mr Farage, with between 20,000 and 50,000 migrants given work permits.
A UKIP spokesman said last week work-related immigration
should be capped at 50,000 a year.
Mr Farage insisted the party had not done a U-turn, but said
the public were sick of talk about caps and targets.
Some 271,000 people moved to the UK to work in the year to
September 2014, according to latest figures.
'Zero control'
Mr Farage said that under the Australian-style points-based
visa system he wants to see, 27,000 people would have qualified to come to work
in the UK last year.
"I can't see us getting anywhere near 50,000 but - I
will say this - there has been an obsession with caps, floors, ceilings,
targets all through British politics. I don't think the public are interested
or believe any of it."
Since 2000, he argued, "we have gone mad, we opened the
doors to much of the world but in particular we opened up the doors to 10
former communist countries, and as a result of our EU membership we have
absolutely zero control over the numbers who come".
Mr Farage, who will set out his party's policy in a speech
later, said UKIP is putting forward a policy that will take immigration in
Britain back to normal. Normal was from 1950 until the year 2000."
Last week, UKIP immigration spokesman Steven Woolfe said:
"We would seek to have a cap of 50,000 on those coming here for work, for
a period of five years.
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