Mr Farage also claimed that a third of social tenants in London were born outside the UK and Ireland, and cited the recent case of the first lady of Sierra Leone renting a council flat.
Last week, Southwark council repossessed the property of Fatima Jabbe-Bio, who had been a tenant since 2007, after a local authority investigation.
Mr Farage added that during the last century, “rules which gave priority to local people and ties to the area were stripped away, in part on the grounds that they discriminated against Britain’s newly diverse population, only to be reimposed in part only after massive disruption to the social fabric of these areas”.
In a 2024 report, the Migration Observatory said that one in 10 new social housing lettings in the 2022-23 financial year had a non-UK citizen as the lead tenant, adding this was most likely down to the rising share of non-UK citizens in the population.
The report added that according to Census data, 7 per cent of people living in social housing in 2021 had a non-UK passport, compared to 5 per cent of people in 2011.
A source close to Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, hit out at the proposals, saying: “Farage knows there’s no way of this happening without establishing a Trump ICE-style deportation police force in the UK, something he will presumably be trialling in Manchester should he win the mayoralty election.
“If he thinks Brits look at American politics longingly, or that it’s credible to make massive unfunded spending commitments, then he’s dead wrong.”
