MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) should avoid taking part in anti-Islamization movement Pegida marches, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Friday.
Pegida UK is scheduled to join a pan-European march on Saturday.
"I would urge UKIP members not to take part in this, but they know that's my view on this anyway," Farage told LBC radio, stressing that Pegida has "pretty dodgy associations and unpleasant pasts."
Pegida, an acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, began organizing rallies in its home city of Dresden, Germany, in October 2014, attracting hundreds and later thousands of supporters.
"I predict that PEGIDA in Britain won't go very far at all… What PEGIDA are scared of in Germany is that the influx that's happened over the course of the last year is so big that it is fundamentally going to change the make-up of many German cities," Farage explained.
The far-right German movement gained support in many member states of the European Union amid rising anti-migrant sentiment as Europe faces its biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
