Bulgarians confront Nigel Farage

Bulgarians confront Nigel Farage: Britain has lots of rain, the food is bad and the men get wasted

He was clearly impressed by a people whose pride in their national identity seemed as profound as his own



One Sunday evening, while I was trying to avoid ironing my shirts, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take Nigel Farage to Bulgaria or Romania.

The UKIP leader is convinced hordes of people from these *countries will pour into Britain when the rules are relaxed next year, so why not see if he’s right?

A few weeks later, I put my proposal to him.

“But nobody will come here from Romania,” said Nigel. “They’ve eaten all the *transport.”

So we went to Bulgaria.

I’d arranged to be met by a pair of burly Bulgarian bodyguards, and we drove straight from the airport to the Fakulteta gypsy ghetto.

There, thousands of Bulgarians live in squalor with no jobs.

Nigel was wearing a tweed jacket, corduroys and brogues. He looked like a Victorian squire visiting his downtrodden villagers.

So were any of these Bulgarian Roma coming to Britain for benefits?

“We are not used to the climate, with lots of rain,” one man said, shaking his head. “We love our homeland.”

The man said he scavenged through bins for food and his family risked being beaten up by *skinheads. But it was preferable to Britain.

“Nigel, we have a problem,” I whispered. “What if we don’t find Bulgarians planning to come?”

“Don’t worry, we will,” he said.

I introduced him to *Tsvetelin Kanchev, a Roma leader and *politician, a “Mr Big” who organised a riotous party in Nigel’s honour.

After Nigel sat down, a rotund gypsy, sounding like Tom Jones, sang in one ear, as a saxophonist honked down the other.

“We had imagined you as some sort of three-headed monster or a dragon,” said Kanchev. “We are happy to meet a smiley person.”

And had his people booked their bus tickets to Britain?

Kanchev reacted with bafflement: “But there are British people raping and molesting children!”

“Not that all British do this,” he added quickly. “Not you or Shakespeare or Mr Elton John.”

A cake was produced with a picture of the European Parliament in the icing.

Nigel roared with laughter, and, after a little *persuasion, Strasbourg’s representative for South East England began dancing with a thin, Bulgarian blonde.

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