Nigel Farage showed 'shades of Enoch Powell' in EU migration comments, Chuka Umunna says

The Ukip leader warned that anger over EU migration 'could lead to violence on the streets'

Ukip leader Nigel Farage arrives for a television interview at Millbank Studios on May 12, 2016 (Getty Images)

Nigel Farage has shown “shades of Enoch Powell” in recent comments warning that anger over EU migration could lead to violence on the streets, senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna has said.

The UKIP leader told the BBC this week that “people who feel the have lost control completely” might feel that “violence is the next step”.

Mr Umunna, the MP for Streatham in south London, compared the comments to Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech in the 1960s.

Labour peer Baroness Lawrence, whose son Stephen was murdered in a racist attack in 1993, also criticised Mr Farage.

Speaking to the BBC this week about the prospects for the UK after the EU referendum, the UKIP leader said: “I think it’s legitimate to say that if people feel they have lost control completely – and we have lost control of our borders completely as members of the European Union – and if people feel that voting doesn’t change anything, then violence is the next step.

“I find it difficult to contemplate it happening here, but nothing is impossible.”

Enoch Powell speaking in the pulpit of the church of St Mary Le Bow, London, in 1977 (Getty images)

Mr Umunna, the former Shadow Business Secretary, said Mr Farage was “letting his true colours show with shades of Enoch Powell in his latest outburst.”

Former shadow Business secretary Chuka Ummuna believes that the problems with gang culture are worsening (Getty)

“He is losing the argument and paving the way for defeat but it is the height of irresponsibility to suggest there will be violence on the streets if he doesn’t get his own narrow-minded way,” he said.

“Anyone who experienced the London riots will be disgusted to hear that Nigel Farage thinks violence is the ‘next step’ if he cannot win the argument.”

Baroness Lawrence also criticised Mr Farage for comments earlier this week, in which he condemned the former Labour government for “rubbing our noses in diversity”.

“When only 6 per cent of MPs and peers are from ethnic minority backgrounds and almost 70% of boards of FTSE 100 companies are exclusively white, it is simply wrong to say people are having their noses rubbed in diversity,” she said. “And he should not speak lightly about seeing violence on our streets in the event of a vote to remain in the EU.