Reform leader and MP candidate for Clacton, Nigel Farage, claimed there are streets in Oldham where "no one speaks English" during an interview with the BBC.

Mr Farage was speaking to Mishal Husain on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4  this morning, following his announcement yesterday (Monday, June 3) that he would in fact be running as an MP after previously ruling himself out as a candidate.

During the interview, the two got on to the subject of Muslim populations in the UK.

ALSO READ: Council leader hits back at Nigel Farage comments about Oldham

Mr Farage said that if people come to the UK without speaking the language and integrating in the community, the country would then have "cities and towns that become literally unrecognisable" and communities where people "don't even speak to each other".

During the tense exchange, Ms Husain asked Mr Farage: "Where do people not speak to each other?"

Mr Farage responded by saying: "I can take you to streets in Oldham right now where no one speaks English."

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Ms Husain challenged this and asked: "Or they could be speaking two languages couldn’t they? Don’t your children speak another language?"

Mr Farage repeated: "Where no one speaks English."

Ms Husain asked: "Do your children speak another language?"

Mr Farage again repeated: "Where no one speaks English."

Ms Husain asked: "Do your children speak another language? How do you know they’re not speaking another language?"

Mr Farage said: "Because I’ve been there and the Guardian have even reported it."

Ms Husain asked: "And you think those people you might hear speaking another language might have no English at all?"

Mr Farage said: "You can sit in your London bubble…"

Ms Husain asked: "Do your children speak another language?"

Mr Farage responded: "I wouldn’t comment on that."

Ms Husain said: "Ok, but I think they do because I think your ex-wife was German…"

Mr Farage said: "I wouldn’t comment on that. I don’t talk about my children and if you do, I think that’s pretty poor form, very poor form, unsurprising but very poor form."

Before moving on the conversation, Ms Husain said: "Perhaps we can agree that speaking more than one language is perhaps a good thing."

Mr Farage married German woman Kirsten Mehr in 1999, but the pair are reported to have been living separately for some years.

The Guardian reported in 2018 that Mr Farage said to former Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg on a podcast that his two children with Ms Mehr both spoke "perfect German".

When speaking to ITV's Good Morning elsewhere this morning, Mr Farage said his goal was to take the Conservative Party over, rather than join it.

He said: “You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative Party will join us – it’s the other way around.”

He added: “I don’t want to join the Conservative Party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over.”