See, that's what I find so difficult about the UKIP issue - as soon as it's raised the mud-flinging starts, and people are so busy hurling expletives at each other that no meaningful debate takes place.
The very idea of voting for UKIP is anathema to me, but I do try to get to the bottom of why many people have become desperate or deluded enough to vote for them. Not all of these people are 'fucking racist cunts' - some of them have genuine concerns that deserve to be heard and engaged with (not pandered to, I hasten to add!). If the mainstream political parties want to put a stop to the UKIP bandwagon, they need to firstly acknowledge where it comes from. There are now too many disparate groups voting for them (ex-Labour; ex-Tory; northern industrial towns; leafy Shires; outer London suburbs) that there is clearly something more than blind, unthinking racism going on.
Of course in absolute terms the UK benefits massively from immigration, but we need to have an honest debate about how, and who exactly is benefitting. There will be winners and losers, and we need to acknowledge this. There is also no denying that rapid population growth of any kind puts a strain on public services (working in schools I see that at first hand). Labour and the Tories need to get much better at putting forward a vision for how best to deal with this. Overstretched public services disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and least educated, some of whom who may end up voting UKIP out of sheer desperation. This is ignorant, yes, but not evil.
What annoys me most is the kneejerk reaction of the middle-class opinion formers in Hampstead and Islington who seek to shut down all debate about UKIP and immigration by describing anyone who votes for them as racist morons/cunts/twats/insert expletive of your choice. Some (perhaps many) of UKIP's voters sadly have racist, or at least xenophobic, motives, but to dismiss them all in such reductive terms smacks to me of intellectual arrogance and class snobbery.