Syrian man who threatened to kill me ought to return to his home country, says Nigel Farage

The whole world has been stunned by the speed at which the Assad regime has fallen in Syria.

All over, from start to finish in less than three weeks. Quite extraordinary.

Assad, who started off, I think for many, with great hope; somebody who trained in London, married a woman in London. We thought maybe western influences would come to Syria, that things would change.

Actually, arguably, it turned into a complete nightmare.

And then we had the rebel forces, and it was almost complicated to know, who are they? Were they al Qaeda? Were they ISIS? What are the current group of people? I don’t know.

There’s been great rejoicing that Assad has gone. And it leaves a very, very big open question.

Yesterday we saw Germany, Austria, Sweden, and then France, then slightly belatedly, the United Kingdom saying right, we’re halting all asylum applications.

And I guess there are two reasons for that. One is, you could say, well, now that Assad has gone, it’s a perfectly safe country, so why should anybody want to claim asylum here?

But the second and perhaps more sinister one is, does it mean that there’ll be people now leaving Syria? Maybe those who committed murderous acts in the name of Assad.

Does it mean those who fought for ISIS that have maybe been freed from some of these prisons that might start to come in our direction?

Maybe one very good example through which we can debate this is Shamima Begum. Should she now be allowed to return?

Will she possibly be allowed to return? And remember, she’s lost every court case in this country.

It’s complicated. No one quite knows how things will settle down in Syria.

We can go all the way back to 2015 when the boats first started crossing the Mediterranean, when ISIS very, very boldly, publicly said they would send their operatives into Europe. And of course, that means, ultimately, in some cases, onto us.

There’s one Syrian I want to leave the country, and he’s called Mada Pasa. He’d gone to Sweden where he’d been arrested for knife crime. He made his to the UK on a small boat.

He’s repeatedly, publicly threatened to kill me. He’s currently in custody: I think he really ought to return to Syria.