To be upset that there are 3 Ukip posters up in houses down my road :(

[LEMmingaround]

It is a pretty working class street, some council, some privately owned houses. Not sure if that is relevant but WHY the fuck would you advertise the fact that you are a fuckwit? All of the people with the notices up are older people - older than me, which is 43 (im not older!!!! - ok, maybe a bit).

Its pretty worrying really that what i would normally see as very respectable folk have been sucked in by this bullshit?

This is a conservative ward, and although dissilussioned with the previous gov i have always voted labour - i am going to have to vote bloody tory in a half beat effort to keep Ukip out of the area :(

My DD lives in a town with a ukip counsellor - its fucking dire and getting worse :(

I think that's a bit of a straw man, icimoi. There is no large-scale migration of unskilled workers arriving in the UK from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I didn't say there was. Of interest, however, is that in terms of visas they come within the top 6 countries, with the US coming second. But the main point of my post, which you have ignored, Manatee, is the point as to the defensiveness of a section of society who claim incorrectly that they aren't "allowed" to talk about immigration for fear of being labelled racist.

The original English / Angles were a bunch of immigrants anyway, it,s why I love my country. I despise UKIP and all their half baked misogynistic, racist ideas. It's frightening that people cannot see them for what they are. Read up on their policies and spread the word, gotta fight the haters.

It's one if the great fallacies that UKIP merely articulate what everyone thinks but isn't allowed to say about immigration. It's ludicrous - you hear of it pretty much every single day on the news, and it's been a central campaign for every single election in living memory.

IIRC the highest number of visa overstayers in the UK are Australians!

Immigration has been used as a vote catcher for years now.
In order for it to be a vote catcher it had to be hyped into a point of massive concern.
So thats what happened.

Hype, hysteria, misinformation and spin.

Labour are as guilty as the rest of them.

Its a handy way of keeping people looking in one direction whilst the welfare state and worker's rights are being dismantled in the other.

List of taboo or previous taboo subjects on mumsnet [in no particular order]
Gina Ford
abortion
UKIP
imigration
clothes when raped
Some irish issues

What has done more damage to workers rights than mass immigration?!? Seriously, some people are seriously deluded on this issue. Do you really think mass immigration is some kind of benevolent thing in order to "bring the world together"? Because that couldn't be further from the truth, it's to provide cheap labour, that's it.

And more reliable and willing labour.

That would be the cheap labour that mans out care homes, hospitals, restaurants. Cleans our offices. Serves our coffee. Fixes our plumbing. And pays a significant chunk of the taxes that fund our public services.

"What has done more damage to workers rights than mass immigration?!?"

The demise of collective bargaining, for one. Although, since you ask, most of the recent legislation on worker's rights has come from European law.

"And pays a significant chunk of the taxes that fund our public services."
Really? People on minimum wage pay a significant chunk of the tax take? You'll have to explain that one to me. I was under the impression that you had to earn about twice that to be a net contributor to the exchequer.

What has done more to cause the demise of collective bargaining than the fact that employers have a massive supply of "more reliable and willing labour" more than willing to work for pay and conditions that British people would consider unacceptable?

No one should be able to vote for a party I disagree with. Why isn't there a law against it? Oh wait I remember now. It's that democracy thing.

I don't especially recommend voting UKIP, but the OP should be aware that the Tories are now anti-immigration too. So her vote will help keep immigrants out.

"List of taboo or previous taboo subjects on mumsnet [in no particular order]
Gina Ford
abortion
UKIP
imigration
clothes when raped
Some irish issues"

By "taboo" do you mean "if I say offensive, sexist, racist or mysogynist things people call me on it"? Because I have certainly been part of lively discussions on all of those topics in the past. I wasn't aware of any censorship.....

Gina Ford is the only subject that is even remotely approaching "taboo" and that is because she threatened legal action. Hardly the same thing.

Icmoi in one post you say that peo

Migrants make a net contribution of £22bn to the exchequer.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/11/06/recent-waves-of-immigrants-to-the-uk-have-contributed-far-more-in-taxes-than-they-received-in-benefits/

Icmoi in one post you label people who want to talk about immigration as racist. In the next post you say it's incorrect for people to say they can't talk about immigration without being called racist? You've just casually done it yourself.

By taboo, I mean people are afraid to talk openly, for fear of being shouted down.
I suppose that may not be the strict dictionary definition of the word.

It shuts down discussion.

"By taboo, I mean people are afraid to talk openly, for fear of being shouted down.
I suppose that may not be the strict dictionary definition of the word."

"Shouted down". I presume you mean "disagreed with"?

MrsBlackthorn the problem with those figures is that it doesn't take into account the fact that it's likely that there is a British person in benefits which effectively cancels out the benefit to the treasury. In addition without the massive influx we've had over the last 15 years it's likely wages would be higher = more tax paid.

That's a very simplistic measure which is notable more for what it leaves out than what it says.

Higher wages = higher prices for all the goods and services we buy, too. We might well have fewer immigrants if Starbucks paid £15 an hour, but the flip side of that is coffees would cost a fiver a time.

It simply isn't true that for every immigrant there's a British person on benefits.

Yes I mean "shouted down". That is exactly what I mean.

If you don't want to be called a racist don't say racist things. It's easy.

UKIPpers have a remarkably tendency to start playing the victim card whenever anyone attempts to counter their arguments, first by suggesting people aren't allowed to talk about immigration, then that the media are in a great conspiracy against them, and then that any counter-arguments are wrong because what can you prove with "facts" anyway.

The simple fact is, UKIP's policies don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. And they do have a track record of candidates and activists saying racist or bigoted things.

Even the few policies in their manifesto make no sense e.g. priority for social housing for people whose parents and grandparents live there.

In many areas priority means no one else will get social housing. If your grandparents emigrated as mine did, hard luck. If you moved away to find a job as many do, hard luck. If you emigrated here or your parents emigrated here, hard luck.

Many people who desperately need social housing will no longer get it. And yet we all know that this policy is just a roundabout way of saying social housing shouldnt go to those whose grandparents werent born in this country.