to aak UKIP supporters if you would have voted for the Nazis too?

[wigglylines]

The brilliant Michael Rosen on UKIP.

l“I sometimes fear that people might think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying, “Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”

SirC - sorry to come back to you so late. I don't know if that is something the main parties really can do, as I am worried that people are mainly voting not because of something the main parties are failing to do, but because of what they've already done. I'm not sure, but that's my worry.

" Milliband went to state school."

Actually he went to school in Massachusetts as well. Plus Oxford and LSE.

He went to Haverstock Comprehensive

...as did quite a few of the children of Primrose Hill lefties

This hysteria is ridiculous. UKIP are getting votes because they are addressing issues that are effecting people's lives, issues that other parties don't seem prepared to discuss. Shouting 'fascist' because people are concerned about Europe/immigration is childish and myopic.
There are people of all colours and religions living in England who are concerned about Europe/immigration, and who are considering voting UKIP. If you think it's only white 'nazi's' they appeal to you are the one who is out of touch.

LRD - I think it's a bit of both. No political party, past or present, other than UKIP, is addressing the issues that other parties are shying away from, with voters feeling that their voices haven't been listened to on the subject of immigration and Europe. Immigration might be good on paper, but in reality it's changed the UK landscape massively in a very, very short space of time - and those concerns have been either brushed under the carpet by the politicians or dismissed as racist. The EU, is, we've been told, A Good Thing - but again, no real opportunity for voters to have a say in whether this money-drain serves local communities well.

Mmm.

I honestly don't believe that.

I think UKIP has created the backlash against immigration. There's always some feeling against immigration and probably there always will be. UKIP is channelling and magnifying it because people want a scapegoat.

I don't really believe the UK landscape has changed massively in a very, very short space of time - or rather, it's been through the same sorts of changes before and come out the other side, and people have always felt their situation was unique and scary.

I mean, isn't it basic pop psychology?

People love thinking they're not being listened to and they should be.

At the moment all I know is I won't be voting for the main three. I don't know whether to vote or to protest-vote/ballot spoil.

But I find it ironic that both UKIP (much-lambasted on here) and the Green Party (much loved on here) share views that I agree with.

Unlike the big three, they both oppose HS2, are committed to decentralising the concentration of power and money in London and building stronger local infrastructure based around local councils, and both are calling for the reduction or abolition of student loans and greater funding to university research (this is v close to my heart).

No political party can survive as a one- or two-trick pony. Migration and the EU is UKIPs rallying cry and the environment is the Greens, but they both have some very convincing policies when you actually read into it. Just as the Greens aren't tree-hugging lentil weavers, UKIP isn't Nazi Germany. Sometimes the hyperbole is quite astounding.

I think that the real issue is mass imigration. Not even immigration per se.

It doesnt help that there are no definite reliable numbers on it.

I have learnt from another thread, that some posters who are not white British are genuinely fearful and worried. And that can spark their emotions. Which is understandable.

"I think UKIP has created the backlash against immigration. There's always some feeling against immigration and probably there always will be. UKIP is channelling and magnifying it because people want a scapegoat.

I don't really believe the UK landscape has changed massively in a very, very short space of time - or rather, it's been through the same sorts of changes before and come out the other side, and people have always felt their situation was unique and scary."

You must be kidding?

It is a fact that the EU migration started by the Blair government is the largest in the history of the UK.

And yes, it is a massive change, and there have been backlashes in the past (e.g., the 1960s). E.g., most of the white British people left places like Barking in the space of a few years in the space of a decade. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21511904

I know a lot of non-EU migrants and they have very strong feelings against EU migrants, because they undercut wages and unlike the non-EU migrants haven't had to satisfy any kind of immigration restrictions to get to the UK. One I spoke to who speaks English as a second language asked me what UKIP were about, and when I explained that they were against the EU and migration from Eastern Europe she said that she would vote for them on 22 May. I don't think she's ever voted before.

You are crazy if you think UKIP created this.

Nope, not kidding.

I just don't believe what you're saying at all.

There are plenty of areas in the town where I grew up where white British people are the minority. So? It doesn't matter to me, and the city is a nice place to live.

I never said UKIP created the situation with immigration - I said they created the strength of the backlash. Which I believe they did. There are some people who will always have grievances, often genuine. If you're out of work and it's because there are immigrants working a job you used to do, you are going to feel shit. If you loved your city because it was full of white people and chippies, and now it's not, you'll mind that too. If your child goes to school somewhere where the teachers are coping with four languages in the classroom you might mind that too. But I think people in those situations have always been around.

What is new, is UKIP stirring up this fear of 'mass immigration' and all these myths like the immigrant getting to stay because of his cat, or the idea that the NHS is breaking down under the strain of immigrants, or that immigrants are costing us huge amounts as a country. The number of people who buy into those myths seems to me to be far greater than usual.

You seem to question so many things to the extent that you dont believe in any of them.

I don't see that at all.

We've had immigration since the 50s, that's true. But they've tended to be in specific areas. Like you could have got off a plane at Heathrow from Timbuktu in 1997, and been astonished at all the non-white people, compared to your mental image of England as being white. But had you gone off to Lincolnshire it would have been much as you imagined.

The difference now is that the old immigration continues, so the South Asian areas are expanding, but on top of that all of these places that were once homogenous now have very noticeable Eastern European populations. (And I think they are more noticeable because they tend to be doing jobs like supermarkets, waitressing, etc., rather than being stuck in an office.) They aren't faked by UKIP. Tesco aren't stocking Polish food in all these different places because of UKIP. They are doing it because of mass immigration.

And I think in the 50s and 60s where we had immigration we had more housing. But since New Labour came in we had more immigration but no more housing.

UKIP didn't create social housing envy. That was created by Labour who jacked prices up to line their pockets, and then didn't build any new housing.

Labour are the cause of the rise of UKIP.

Me, kin?

Yes

aga - yes, but you're looking at it from the perspective that you notice immigration.

I would imagine people said exactly the same in the 1960s. I know they did in the 1490s.

It's not new.

I do think, mind, that there is a real effect that as a world, we're becoming more mixed up in terms of ethnicities and cultures, but I don't think there's any difference in the way it's affecting populations, compared to the way immigration has in the past.

kin - sorry, I don't follow.

You dont believe in
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h..
I am referring to your last paragraph.

No, I'm sorry it is new.

We have the largest number of people born outside the UK ever.

Given that immigration has been going on since the 1950s that number really should be constant if what you were saying is true.

On top of the literally millions from Eastern Europe (unprecedented in number against ANY previous immigration), we also had a 60% increase in the number of Muslims between 2001 and 2011. More than doubled since 1991.

There is plenty for people to object to. Why are you so surprised that they do?

Of course we should allow unlimited immigration - we have loads of spare housing and job vacancies after all!!

You mean, I don't believe in lots of things? Are you asking if you've understood me correctly?

If so, yes, I think so, though I'm not very clear why you're labelling them with letters!

aga - no, given what I'm saying, there's no reason why the number would be constant, is there?

I'm not at all surprised people object.

I just think that what we're seeing isn't new - people have always thought that what they were seeing was an unprecedented and unsustainable level of immigration. And time and again, we've seen how immigrants became part of the community, and people eventually accepted what had happened.

I think it is likely to keep happening, and I don't see why this time would be any different from any other time.

Think about it like this: if in 1250 you lived in a village where everyone was related, and suddenly people from 20 miles away moved in. You'd feel it was unprecedented immigration, you'd get terribly worried, and you'd wonder how things would ever go back to the way they were.

Obviously, today, we wouldn't even notice that, because our populations are much more mobile and diverse (and much bigger!) already. But our responses would be just the same, and our sense of disruption the same.

BMW - please tell me which political party supports unlimited immigration?

LRD take your pick Labour LibDems Greens Torys