nick griffin
As leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin was staunchly against immigration to Great Britain Getty

Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British Nationalist Party, has announced that he intends to move to Hungary "within six months". The far-right politician, who was ousted from the BNP in 2014, said he decided to emigrate to the eastern European country because it has a government that "doesn't want to commit national suicide" which he believes to be "very refreshing from someone coming from the west".

Griffin also praised Hungary for building a border wall to keep out refugees and for providing state help for large Hungarian families.

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The move comes as something of a shock given the anti-immigration views formed a major part of Griffin's entire political career.

Speaking to Hungarian website 444, Griffin said: "There's already a sort of nationalist emigre community building up here. There's French, there's Italians and Swedes, and Brits as well, so it's only a trickle at present.

"I have no doubt at all that when the trouble really begins with al-Qaeda and Isis in western Europe, that trickle is going to become a flood."

He added: "And I hope that Hungary, the Hungarian government, the Hungarian people, will welcome people who are genuine refugees from western Europe but keep out the liberals who have brought western Europe to this state in the first place."

Griffin said he still intends to keep up with political activism while living in Hungary.

When asked where he intends to live in Hungary, the extreme right-winger said that while Budapest is a "fantastic city" he is a country boy by nature so will "probably live somewhere out in the sticks, as we would say in England".