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 :(

The simple fact is, UKIP's policies don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny

They probably dont stand up to much.

And they do have a track record of candidates and activists saying racist or bigoted things.

True.

UKIPpers have a remarkably tendency to start playing the victim card whenever anyone attempts to counter their argument

Not aware of this. It has been happening big time. Millions of people were silenced.

at the media are in a great conspiracy against them,

Personally I wouldnt have said that they were at all.

and then that any counter-arguments are wrong because what can you prove with "facts" anyway.

wouldnt have a clue about that.

Cortina2000 UKIP are 1. Not fascist (anti fascist actually). 2. UKIP are NOT racist. You cannot join UKIP if you have racist links or known racist views!

Can you please explain why the UKIP candidate for Armley in Leeds cites three well known Nazis party high command amongst his influential people on his personal facebook page? That's looking a little bit like fascist/racist leanings to me.

That nugget notwithstanding, I don't give a fig for the UKIP party line of "we're not racist" (anyone can be racist, even black, asian, jewish etc as well as white people) as UKIP party members, candidates and supporters continually trip themselves up and show their true colours. It may not be Farage's intention to have these people in his ranks, but like it or not, they are there.

But back to the main issue which is leaving Europe...do UKIP seriously believe that leaving Europe will help everything that is wrong with the UK? Really? My eleven year old has a more realistic grasp of the domestic politics than that.

And as for the poplutaion comments...we are already an aging population. Current workers wages pay for the health and social care bill and the pensions of our current pensioners. If our population is to be reduced as someone suggested, who will pay for all those services and pensions?

At a simplistic level I would think that Britain would welcome the economic migrants who pay into the pot, but don't take a lot out and then go home again and don't draw a pension in this country. win win for Britain's pensioners there.

UKIP need to show me some sensible policies with regard to education, health, social care and fiscal policy before I can ever be persuaded to take them seriously. and I'm just not seeing it. Just a lot of overblown pompousity and hot air and a major case of foot in mouth disease in some cases (and some rather nasty tendencies in others)

I don't feel comfortable that so many people will support them this month. But I do think other parties are to blame for that - for linking racism with immigration concerns for so long when virtually all other countries are able to separate out economic advantage from mean spirited prejudice and not make people feel furtive about expressing opinions on key issues

Well put tiggy and in very simple language. Is this really so hard to grasp.

Police investigate man for criticising UKIP on Twitter. Yet UKIP seem to believe they're being silenced.

www.buzzfeed.com/jonstone/police-investigate-man-for-criticising-ukip-on-twitter?s=mobile

(Like that idiot UKIP candidate who claimed the alphabetically-ordered ballot paper was an anti-UKIP conspiracy).

If our population is to be reduced as someone suggested, who will pay for all those services and pensions?

I see, so whats thy Labour did it...they worked out by 2014 we would need x million new people living here to support everyone because pre 2004 we were so under populated...

Well, yes. As people age the ratio of pensioners to working people (taxpayers) grows. So to pay for pensions and health care for an aging population, you need more working people.

It shuts down discussion.
No it doesn't. If you say something racist/sexist then you get called on it. Otherwise you are free to discuss it. UKIP and their ilk have created a mythology around 'political correctness'. They have used it as a hammer to beat right thinking people over the head with and when that didn't work, they created further mythologies about immigration etc. In reality, Farage and others are going to go to the EU, take their money and do bugger all for the country.

A further point, if all these racist etc. representatives of his party are allowed to continue in power, and they will be, maybe we need to bear in mind, that these are the idiots who will be writing futher policies. This is the point at which we need to be very, very afraid.

It's not about total population, but the demographic of that population as well you know. We need young people in the UK to pay for the aging population and immigration provides those young people paying into the pot.

I've just been, as someone upthread suggested, trying to educate myself about UKIP and what they stand for. Their "manifesto" is a 12 page PDF document that consists of two pages that are a vote UKIP poster, one page of hello from Farage, a page of blatant racism against Romanians and Bulgarians, one of testionials, a donations form and four or five pages of what they propse to do oppose this and we'll do that, but absolutely no mention of how they propose to fund any of it.

But I do think other parties are to blame for that - for linking racism with immigration concerns for so long when virtually all other countries are able to separate out economic advantage from mean spirited prejudice and not make people feel furtive about expressing opinions on key issues

^^ THIS sums up the whole 24 pages of this thread.

• We need young people in the UK to pay for the aging population and immigration provides those young people paying into the pot

Its back tracking and trying to come up with excuses as to why we ever needed 4 million ( conservative estimate) people to come in in a decade to the UK when the UK had no provisions for them, no extra budgets for schools, or councils or extra MW or extra hospitals or staff or housing.

star it sums every thread on the whole subject.

How many teachers have struggled, how many hospitals, how many council workers, police and so on, but they have been gagged if they say,...hang on we are struggling here.....whats going on? They were slammed down as racist....

Where are those people now voicing their concerns?

Who is gagging now?

MrsBlackthorn - just on that man being interviewed by the police for supposedly just "criticising" UKIP. I thought this was a very interesting story, but sadly it turns out to not be true. As someone in the comments on Buzzfeed points out: "the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983 makes it a criminal offence to 'pass off' materials as being from one political party, when in fact they are not, during an election period. IE, nothing to do with criticism, but that fact that he is trying to make this look like a UKIP document, which it is not, and trying to say that these are actual UKIP policies, when they are not. So it's not about criticism, it's about lying."

So once again you misrepresent for your own ends. Very tiresome.

I don't blame immigrants for the removal of worker's rights.
Because that would be stupid.

I blame the government for creating a climate of fear (in some cases using the immigration issue to do so) so workers are so grateful for having a job they will put up with anything to keep it.
Also the apathy of younger people who have never had to fight for rights to contracted hours, sick pay and equality in the work place.
They bought into the lie that the unions were a destructive rather than a protective force.

But no. Blame the immigrants.

I am the deluded one?

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.

Nonsense. Don't misrepresent what I have posted.

I agree with BeyondRepair and tiggy.

There are many many people who are not racist, but still dont believe in mass immigration.

Your house can only fit in so many people for a short amount of time. It becomes unstainable after a whilr.

But, and here is the killer bit. You still love them.

Nice new threads MrsD!

Tiggy, it isn'r racist to favour a stronger immigration policy, but UKIP are cashing in on the fear that has been stirred up and deliberately targetting the voters who are reactionary over immigration policy (Farage has in the past said he welcomes BNP voters into the UKIP fold).

The first page of their "manifesto" is all "Romanians are bad, stealing our jobs and houses and green spaces and raping our women". I have zero respect for any party who opens their political gambit on those lines, especially as it's being posted through the doors of many immigrants who have been in the UK for some time and are fully paid up members of our society; it makes me quite ashamed to be British.

at the time when loads of people first came if the Labour Gov had noticed this ( impossible as no counting checks in place), has said " sorry everyone, we made a mistake....but don't worry we are going to put emergency measures in place to make funding available to local communities to help support everyone OR helped to stem the tide...

None of these discussions would be taking place.

But what did Labour do?

Nothing.

and there are many people who start sentences with "I'm not racist, but...." and then espouse a load of racist claptrap.

but UKIP are cashing in on the fear that has been stirred up and deliberately targetting the voters who are reactionary over immigration policy

Has it ever occurred to anyone that actually they are appealing to people whose lives are affected by immigration? People who may never read the Mail or any papers, or watch TV but who are affected by immigration and dont need to be told by anyone, thats its good or bad because they are living it and breathing it, and they are struggling.

A lady came on once a long time ago onto a thread, she worked in a charity in a shelter type place, she said in a very nice way, they were inundated with very poor eastern Europeans needing help, she said before, the charity was already struggling, as all these charities are...but now, they are just sinking.
She was desperate. She wasn't saying the poor EE were not deserving of their charities help, she was simply aghast that the government were giving, deliberately giving people like her charity, more poor people to help. She wanted to help anyone who came...
She doesn't need to be told by anyone that so much quick immigration has not been helpful.

In fact, thinking about that poor lady doing a very noble job in the first place being shouted down and written off as a racist makes me sick.

at the time when loads of people first came if the Labour Gov had noticed this
When was this mythical time?

It looks as if UKIP is going to do very well at this coming election. If that makes those complacent po faced politicians in the other parties sit up and listen then UKIP and those who vote for them will have achieved a lot. IMHO of course.

During The Royal Wedding Saga we covered the house with republic posters and anti royal slogans !
It caused huge trauma but also great debate . That's what is good about posting your opinions - it encourages discussion.
You can bring it up with your neighbours at the next street party/ village knees up .