to think it proves lots of people want change

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That ukip are making such huge gains in the elections.
If mnetters could temper their hysteria of screaming racism, I think it is a clear indication that the fundamental principals of the party of no toEurope and no to continued mass immigration are very important to a lot of people

Thanks for the link, AgaPanthers. Lots of those policies are just unworkable, though.

• Immigrants must support their dependents (including private education for any children) for five years - this would put off lots of keen hardworking immigrants who can't afford £10,000 per child per year for private school.

• 'Develop shale gas to reduce energy bills and free us from dependence on foreign oil and gas' - can't see this going down well in south-east England...

• 'Make [prison] sentences mean what they say' - we already have horrifically overcrowded prisons.

And, if leaving the EU would be roughly neutral in financial terms, then why is the CBI (not exactly a statist leftist body) so opposed to it?

It really saddens me to be honest. I still think Stewart Lee was bang on when he said that voting for UKIP as a 'protest vote' is like shitting in a hotel bed as a protest about bad service. You may make your point but you end up having to lie in a shitty bed!

Scraping the barrel now aga but please, give me a lecture on the working classes

"I don't think it has anything to do change - central disappointed LibDems have jumped to Labour and the right wing Tories have jumped to UKIP."

How do you work that out?

E.g., 2006 in Rawmarsh, Rotherham:

Labour 55%
Lib Dem 25%
Tory 20%

2007:
Labour 65%
Tory 35%

Today:
UKIP 52%
Labour 40%
Tory 8%

UKIP couldn't win without winning over Labour voters.

They haven't actually taken over any Councils though, although I acknowledge that they have a lot more seats. 99 so far - up from just 1!

"Thanks for the link, AgaPanthers. Lots of those policies are just unworkable, though."

Well

"Immigrants must support their dependents (including private education for any children) for five years - this would put off lots of keen hardworking immigrants who can't afford £10,000 per child per year for private school."

I think a lot of people would agree though. If you're a white UKIP voter living in Luton and your local school is 80% Bangladeshi, then you'd probably be pleased if people had to setup their own schools. I'm not saying it's sensible, but it's not going to put people off is it.

Or if you are a low-paid worker, and don't necessarily think 'hardworking immigrants' are a good thing, because they will compete you out of a job, so again a good thing.

"

• 'Develop shale gas to reduce energy bills and free us from dependence on foreign oil and gas' - can't see this going down well in south-east England..."

A bit abstract though isn't it? As long as it's not in my backyard...

"'Make [prison] sentences mean what they say' - we already have horrifically overcrowded prisons."

Again, I think a lot of people would say 'build more, then'.

people speak about how bad UKIP policies are but lets look at the policies for the other main parties - they are ALL a work of fiction - they tell you one thing then do something else when they think no one is looking. WHY would anyone trust a bunch of spin doctors? labour still haven't produced half their policies for next years election - how can you vote for something if you don't know what your voting for? should we just trust what they are going to pull out the hat? hardly...

look a miliband on TV this week - he was absolutely appalling - he didn't know what he was speaking about in nearly every single interview - how can he possibly relate to voters? there are people being called thick on here for voting for UKIP but thick is exactly the phrase I would use to describe miliband - he doesn't have a clue.

I didn't vote for UKIP but I think they are getting a hard time needlessly - all the quotes etc. from farage are from a number of years ago - nothing is particularly recent. I wonder what quotes could be dragged up from miliband/clegg/Cameron from 5 years ago? funnily enough no one seems to bother what they were saying, or they have conveniently forgotten.

oxford you seriously think voting for the greens is a good way to use your vote? your absolutely deluded if you think that, you definitely have a cheek to call UKIP voters thick...

They seem a party for selfish people. Look after yourself and sod the rest of humankind. Although I bet there are plenty of Mumsnetters who would love their policy to create new grammar schools so that they could spend their money on coaching their children into schools that the poor people can't afford tutors for.

Migsy1, local elections are done in thirds in most areas, and with only 1 seat held by UKIP in the seats defended (they have I think a couple of hundred overall, but just 1 from 2010) it was literally impossible for them to win councils in these areas.

Today in Basildon, these seats were up for grabs:

Tory 11
Labour 3
Lib Dem 1

And the outcome was:

UKIP 11
Tory 4
Labour 0
Lib Dem 0

So clearly if the whole council had been up for grabs, UKIP would now be in control of Basildon with a massive majority. As it is, it's NOC.

Rotherham's seats being fought were:

Labour 19
Tory 2

These split

Labour 11
UKIP 10

So if the whole council had been up for grabs, UKIP could have won control there too.

In Labour Thurrock, UKIP took 6 of 16 seats.

I have always thought we should take UKIP more seri

I'm still trying to work out what would make anyone vote ukip after dh confessed that he did.

I was utterly horrified and we has quite an argument about it. He keeps saying 'you know I don't agree with that' when I say things like 'but you just voted for a party who thinks that women are less employable that men, why the fuck would you do that????' To which my only answer is 'well you clearly don't disagree with it THAT much'. I cannot reconcile it, I really can't.

Stupidity is also a factor. His reasoning involved the 'fact' hay he picked up from fuck alone knows where that ukip have a policy of not voting so it didn't matter- it was just a symbolic protest vote and they wouldn't be able to affect anything directly. Unfortunately he didn't discuss any of this with me beforehand so I couldn't correct him before he bloody voted.

He also doesn't seem to realise that many of the issues he cares about are areas where all our parties are letting us down and the eu is our best hope!!

This is a man who until he actually got in the polling booth was going to vote green!!!! As far as I can see its sod all to so with any actual policies or opinions but just a vague eu referendum protest. It's just sad that people don't seem to realise that voting for someone so repellent, no matter how appealing their one central tenet, debases you and debases politics. If ukip are change, I'll keep the status quo. It's not worth it.

Aga: I was speaking generally using stats across large portions of the country, not one area, but sure, some it will be cranky central Tories jumping to labour and right wing labour jumping to UKIP (we have a councillor in our area who is one) - it's still people jumping labels not changing their opinions on issues, if not for UKIP they would be in their own parties calling for this stuff or in one of the other half dozen extreme right wing groups. All of these political groups have giant overlaps with each other, changing colours doesn't mean a change of position on political issues. Changing colours doesn't mean "lots of people want change", it's all the status quo of keeping those in power comfortable and everyone else being kicked around and divided.

There is nothing revolutionary about these results and no "earthquake" as the media keeps calling it about these results. It's more of the same just louder, these right wing groups have always been around. We have EU countries putting up walls around 'undesirables' and forcing them to live in shipping containers and that has made no EU political ripple on this because those on top have already divided up all the rest to prevent any such actual revolutionary action.

Immigrants are just one of those groups (though none of them make a peep about all the Brits in other EU countries benefiting from EU free movement policies) to kick and divide people with. I don't think UKIP getting more seats means any sort call for change, these types have always been around. I am a non-EU immigrant from the US and have been here over a decade, I don't feel safe going to my local park with my kids without other adults because of how often I have been abused and mine is so minor compared to others, I have to be careful going to the corner shop because the EDL campaign outside of it so often, and I live in a "safe labour area". A change of colours really doesn't mean change when what's behind it is still the same shit with a new ribbon.

I have always thought we should take UKIP more seriously we can not keep name calling those that support them and dismissing them I am not so sure not that many votes are a protest vote

Nigel Farage has carefully created an image of him being a man of the people one that listens to what are many people's concerns and pains me to say far better at this than any other party leader

People are concerned about immigration, the role of Europe and and they have addressed that they are pulling in support not only from the far right but from middle and floating voters too they can no longer be dismissed and shouted down it has not worked

I don't see why we would make a peep about Brits sunning themselves for their retirement in Spain. If Spain don't want them then that's Spain's business surely? I wouldn't object, and I doubt anyone else would either.

tbf I find a lot of people who really blow their tops at any mention of mass immigration being a problem are those who have personal reasons to feel that way, they/members of their families are immigrants.

My gran was an immigrant during war time but I still believe now its gone way to far!

"Hang on a minute, with roughly half the seats counted so far, UKIP have won a whopping 5% of them (100 seats). That's less then half the amount the busted flush, totally unelectable Libdems have. It's hardly a runaway victory."

It's massive gains from one. The Lib Dems have an established base in local government. They have lost more than half of their councillors from a few years ago. UKIP have their highest ever number.

How many of these people who are 'hugely concerned' about immigration could tell you roughly what net migration to the UK is, and whether it's going up or down? (without googling )

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

"some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. "
"black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent."

I have a suspicion that we could lock down the borders for a decade, and people would still be complaining there is 'too much immigration', meaning they heard someone speaking foreign on the bus, and they can see non-white people. And they'd vote UKIP on that basis.

So what's the answer? I don't really know. Campaigning? Education? But no-one wants to sit around listening to/reading boring facts, Daily-Mail style hysteria is much more interesting.

How many of these people who are 'hugely concerned' about immigration could tell you roughly what net migration to the UK is, and whether it's going up or down? (without googling )

Exactly. I for one don't think there is an immigration problem. It's just the current issue of the day, and immigrants have always made easy scapegoats. Many countries accept more immigrants and it works out fine (many are ex colonies). And frankly the main problem I see here with immigrants is housing, but that is a housing problem. UKIP is absolutely silent on that.

And I don't know why other parties aren't talking about how one sided the cons at put forth by UKIP are. If we leave the EU, what happens to the Brit who can't get a job here, but could in France? What he wants is free trade without free movement (which the EU would never agree to) and even if he did get it that would be a disaster.

If UKIP voters feel that other people feel that they are superior to them, that they're racist or just think they're 'thick' they are likely to not discuss it openly.

That would completely remove any opportunity to actually discuss their policies and views and therefore eliminates any potential of them perhaps seeing a different viewpoint.

I think this is why so many people voted LibDem last time. Only they have been so useless in the coalition they lost their spot as the go to party.

Sadly the 3 main parties are no longer interested in the views of those who vote for them - only their global corporate paymasters as that's who lines their pockets. Effectively the UK has become a one party state.

Nor do we have the option to put a cross against the following on our ballot papers "none of the above fit to govern" - which actually I suspect is what would win the majority vote in a general election by a landslide were it presented as an option.

I have very personal reasons for not wanting to see UKIP ascend to power (I'm not white and my son is the offspring of an E.European immigrant) however even I can see their appeal. It's the same appeal that got Hitler swept to power on a wave of what began as simple democratic disillusionment.

Sneering at those who have voted UKIP is not the answer - but neither is mildly accepting the current one party state that is doing so much damage to a once nation once Great, but still bursting with unrecognised & un-utilised talent and potential.

' main problem I see here with immigrants is housing, but that is a housing problem'

I live in the rural north west and see green land being destroyed constantly and expensive '3, 4 bed family homes' being built. But alas these homes arnt for the people who actually need them (the poor), they cost a bloody fortune and are actually being built for the well off as no one else could afford them.

The country is going to the dogs and yes its not purely because of immigration. But having loads of people move into a country thats already got a huge job and housing shortage isnt exactly a good idea, is it?

apparently, UKIP is having trouble breaking through into London. As usual, the parts of the country with less immigrants are more anti immigrant.