NIGEL Farage has defended a poster he put out in the run up to Brexit, warning refugees would flood into Britain.

In a fiery debate on GB News, the former Brexit Party leader was challenged by Peter Edwards, the former editor of LabourList, as the row grew over Labour’s recent poster calling out Rishi Sunak’s record on crime..

Criticising Mr Farage’s Brexit poster, which depicted Syrian refugees on the Slovenian border, Mr Edwards said it was “deeply inappropriate”.

He said: “I think the 2016 poster was based around the distortion that tens of thousands of Syrian refugees would come to Britain and that did not happen. I think you know what you were doing.”

But Mr Farage defended his decision saying: “I believe I was wholly justified in putting that poster out. I said, as Europe weakens its borders and people come they will try and come to Britain, so the link is absolutely direct.

“Every single one of the people trying to get to Britain by dinghy has crossed the land borders of Europe or the sea borders of Europe. Many have come in through the Mediterranean. Some have come in through the eastern land borders. And I said if Europe’s borders are weak, we will finish up getting a huge flow. What I hadn’t reckoned is that Brexit Britain, a government in Brexit Britain would allow the situation.”

He added: “I probably should have been stronger. But the point is if you put out posters like that and I found by doing that, you lead the debate. You lead the debate. And I think that’s what Starmer is doing here. I think actually, this is the cleverest thing he’s done since he was Labour leader.”

Responding, Mr Edwards said: “I disagree. I wouldn’t have taken this approach to the poster but I still have complete faith in his approach. And I suspect actually a lot of the Labour campaign is going to be on the very traditional areas of GP waiting lists, NHS waiting time, school class sizes, and so on and so on.”