Nigel Farage is touring the country hoping to show how Britain can cope without Europe . But the Ukip leader 's campaign came to an embarrassing halt when on a tour of a hinge factory he met an Hungarian worker who spoke no English . After an awkward exchange with Ivan Loncsarevity at the plant in Essex , Mr Farage was quick to insist he did not want to send EU migrants home to stop them taking the jobs of young Britons . Scroll down for video . Ukip leader Nigel Farage had an awkward exchange with Hungarian Ivan Loncsarevity at a hinge factory in Essex . Mr Farage 's immigration policy has been shrouded in confusion for weeks , as the party flip-flops between setting a target for net migration and insisting targets do not work . He wants an Australian-style system to set targets for the level of skills needed for someone to come to Britain in search of work . At present no limits can be put on workers from elsewhere in the European Union under freedom of information rules . Mr Farage today visited hinge manufacturer NICO in Clacton , Essex to promote his party 's election policies . He was campaigning with Ukip MP Douglas Carswell ( left ) who hopes to hold the seat he won after defecting from the Tories last year . After meeting several workers , he struggled to make small talk when he met 62-year-old Hungarian Mr Loncsarevity . He has lived in Colchester for five years after travelling to the UK for work , but could not answer any of Mr Farage 's questions as he does not speak any English . His colleagues described him as 'relatively low-skilled ' . Mr Farage has previously railed against the number of people from elsewhere in Europe working in the UK . Last year he said : 'When you boil it down to Romania , Bulgaria , Poland , Hungary , Latvia , Lithuania and Estonia , over a million of their workers are in Britain and only 42,000 British citizens are working in those countries . ' Mr Farage was campaigning with Ukip MP Douglas Carswell ( left ) who hopes to hold the seat he won after defecting from the Tories last year . But today he insisted he would not want to send Mr Loncsarevity back to Hungary . 'Ukip has never said anyone should leave the country , so the question is entirely baseless , ' he told reporters . 'One of the big problems that we 've got in engineering is a real shortage of young people studying engineering to go into trades such as this , which is regrettable . 'We 've got rid of technical colleges and encouraged more and more young people to go to university and study degrees which are not directly linked to industry such as this . 'If there 's no British person trained to do that job , then that says more about us than them . ' NICO 's manufacturing manager , Steve Dalton , said that the firm needed to look to Eastern Europe to fill a skills gap and on occasion had flown potential employees from Poland . Mr Dalton said he was not a Ukip supporter but did not oppose the party 's proposal of an Australian-style points system designed to limit the number of immigrants . He said : 'There needs to be some controls but presumably , if we needed to fill a skills gap , we would still be able to do that under such a system . ' The company employs 130 people , six of whom are migrants from Eastern Europe . Finance director Gillian Hagger said : ' A lot of industries in the UK do need migrant workers . 'The area we 're in means we 've got a large pool to recruit from but sometimes we find their skills are limited . On those occasions we have had to look further afield , including flying interviewees in from Poland . ' Mr Farage was quick to insist he did not want to send EU migrants home to stop them taking the jobs of young Britons . Later Mr Farage visited the town 's Copping Community Centre with Douglas Carswell - the first person to be elected as a Ukip MP after defecting from the Conservatives . He met supporters and again spoke of the lack of young British people pursuing careers in manufacturing and leaving engineering firms with a 'genuine shortage ' of skilled workers . He said : 'We will say that anyone doing engineering at degree level should not be paying any tuition fees . ' In November , Ukip 's Mark Reckless suggested that European migrants would only be allowed to stay for a 'fixed period ' if Britain chose to leave the EU . Mr Farage later insisted there had been 'confusion ' and insisted Ukip respected the 'rule of law and British justice ' .
Ukip leader lost for words as he met Ivan Loncsarevity at the plant in Essex . Struggled for small talk because Mr Loncsarevity speaks little English . Farage insisted he did not want to deport migrants if Britain left the EU .