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Ukip leader Nigel Farage confidently predicted that Greece will leave the euro, allowing the destination to devalue its own currency and become a bargain hot spot for holidays.
A controversial choice of keynote speaker at this year’s ITT Conference in Malta, Farage even vowed to buy a Greek holiday from his local travel agent when Greece’s euro exit happens.
In a speech largely focused on his case against the European Union and moves towards a more federal ‘United States of Europe’, Farage denied his party was anti-immigration.
He said he was for controlled global immigration aimed at allowing people with the right skills into the UK from wherever they originate from, in particular Commonwealth countries.
Asked about Ukip’s approach to the need for seasonal workers in travel, Farage said he favoured a work permit system for a limited period with no right to in-work benefits.
Farage described the euro as a disaster and said Greece will leave and return to the drachma.
“They will have massive devaluation, probably 75%, and you guys will all be quite busy because Greece will become the number one holiday destination in the world.
“When that happens I have pledged publicly to go down to my local travel agent in Sevenoaks and book a seven-night holiday in Greece.”
Farage said the Greek economy had contracted 27% since 2008, more than the 16% that the UK economy endured after World War Two that led to the creation of the welfare state and the NHS.
“There is absolutely no prospect of any improvement at all because the Mediterranean now is going into a deflationary spiral,” he said.
Farage said the idea of the euro was sold to people on the basis that travellers would not have to change their money, but he said one of the joys of travelling was experiencing new things like changing pounds for French francs or Spanish pasetas.
Farage said he had formed the opinion that the most dangerous thing happening in Europe right now was the continued attempt to force harmonisation against most people’s wishes.
He claimed there was no democratic mandate in Europe for further integration and that the political class’s continued attempts to force it through was leading to the rise of far right fascist parties.
“I absolutely detest this attempt to take 28 different countries and force us into one. They want to harmonise us, turn us into some new kind of Europe.
“Let’s live together in our own countries, and let’s be friends and trade and cooperate together at a European level.
“I will not rest until we have killed this monster that’s called the European Union.”
Farage denied his agenda added up to a backwards step to a Little England, saying that the UK is already the Eurozone’s biggest export market.
And he decried Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s view expressed in the recent head-to-head television debates that Britain was too small to strike global trade deals.
“Nobody has done more to help my political career than Nick Clegg. I’m extremely grateful to him.
“I said to Nick, the problem is you don’t think we are good enough, do not think we have the ability to chart our own course in the world.
“If you corral people against their will in to a new state with a new passport, with a new police force, and ultimately a new army you are in danger of doing what we did in 1920 creating Yugoslavia.
“What we are beginning to see, partly because of this attempt to push people together politically, partly because of the disastrous error which is the euro, is the very kind of nationalist and neo-facist groups growing up in the Med countries that this project sought to stop.”
Farage predicted that the “political earthquake” Ukip had caused by topping the recent European Parliament elections will continue into next year’s General Election.
And he claimed Ukip could be the party that holds the political balance of power after next year’s vote after it won support in Labour heartland constituencies and even in Scotland.
He sees both the main political parties going into next year’s election promising a referendum on Europe, saying he expects Labour leader Ed Miliband to match the Tories’ pledge.
But, having said he does not trust David Cameron to stick to his word, he said a strong Ukip would be the guarantor that they would make good on their promises.
However, concerned the ‘stay in’ campaign would enjoy favourable media coverage and be heavily funded, he called for an ombudsman to oversee the referendum is run fairly.
Farage prompted several rounds of applause among ITT delegates for his views against positive discrimination for women in business, Scottish independence and the scrapping of grammar schools.
Challenged over his controversial views over people who live in the UK but speak a different language, which have led to accusations that his party is racist, Farage said: “Really the argument is clear and logical. If you are going to have immigration to a country you have to have it at a rate that’s sustainable that allows people to integrate into that culture.”
He said the rush of mass immigration since the Blair Labour government took power in 1997 has led to entire communities to develop in towns and cities where English is not spoken.
“I want to live in a country that has a sensible immigration policy, where our kids can play football together and speak to each other in the same language.”
Farage added he did not want to live in a country that turns a blind eye to the practices of certain religious sects, citing Islamic Sharia law being followed in Leicester as an example.