ANKARA

 The leader of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party claimed Wednesday that half a million Islamic jihadists could enter Britain as a result of the EU’s response to the migrant boat crisis in the Mediterranean.

Speaking at a European Parliament debate in Strasbourg, Nigel Farage MEP said current EU policy “poses a direct threat to our civilization.”

"When ISIS (Daesh) say they want to flood our continent with half a million extremists, they mean it," he said. "If the message is that anybody that comes will be accepted, we are headed for disaster."

Dutch MEP Sophia in 't Veld, also speaking in the debate, labeled Farage’s comments “populist and despicable,” claiming that his theory of a “flood of jihadists” was "invented by Mr Farage to get himself elected on 7 May."

Farage is currently running for parliament in the British general election due to take place next week.

The debate was sparked by the drowning of 800 migrants from Libya and other unstable nations attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.

The International Organization for Migration said the total number of deaths via migrant drowning could reach 30,000 in 2015, based on the current death rate. This is a dramatic 100-fold increase from the 2014 figure.

In response to the crisis, the European Council decided last week to triple funding for rescue operations.

Farage, however, has forcefully opposed the idea of the U.K. joining EU efforts to rescue the migrants. 

His party is notorious for its anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In an election leaders' debate last month, Farage said he opposed the treatment of HIV positive foreigners in Britain's publicly-funded National Health Service, a comment which drew severe condemnation from other party leaders.

“The clear demand for the rapid implementation of a common EU migration and asylum policy… would be wholly unacceptable to a United Kingdom that already has levels of immigration that are too high,” Farage told the European Parliament.

Farage added that “we are guilty for this crisis” as Britain had taken part in the bombing and destabilization of Libya.

He previously stated that Britain could take in limited number of refugees – so long as they were Christians from the Middle East and North Africa.