Any UKIP supporters on here? What exactly are you voting for?

[chicaguapa]

I confess I don't know what the UKIP policies are, but wondered if the people voting for them could explain to me what they are please. Thanks.

LOL superb!

I am a pensioner. I am not a UKIP supporter. Talking to contemporaries I think one explanation why UKIP seems disproportionately supported by older people is because they are finding it difficult to accept the changes - and the speed of changes - they have witnessed over the last 50 years.

Rightly or wrongly and for good or ill, the England (in particular) that they were familiar with in the 1950s is a 'different' country from the one they now live in and many find this unfamiliarity disconcerting and uncomfortable.

In UKIP I suspect (though I can't prove) they see something harking back to the England of their younger days. I think there is an element of nostalgia for times past, though I totally accept that is likely to be only one of several reasons.

This is the thing MoreBeta. Lots of people are sick of being treated like idiots, so instead they vote for the disingenuous bunch who are playing on exactly that motivation.

It's not a clever solution tbf

Grimbletart, thankyou very much for posting that - I had suspected that it might be the case.

It's very understandable, but very sad.

UKIP makes idiots out of everyone who votes for them. It's hardly a solution.

"They are all older people and their beef is with the EU. They basically want to be like Switzerland."

Yes. That describes me and frankly I think we could do a version of Switzerland a lot better than Switzerland. We have got a lot more going for us in the UK.

you said what I was thinking Wallison.

MoreBeta, you won't get Switzerland by putting Farage in charge.

I agree with the irrelevant issues the main parties seem to like to pursue. I know a county councillor and he was telling me that on doorsteps people were cheesed off about gay marriage - not that they were opposed - they just didn't care, including gay couples. It's low on the list of priorities. Likewise, as others have said, the Leveson Enquiry. Fgs! How many of the ordinary population had their phones hacked? And now we find that certain vested interests are rubbing their hands at the prospect of the curtailing of press freedom (eg MPs and expenses).

And if we're supposed to be a democracy, most people do not relish being told that actually, no, you can't think this or vote that because you can't . [Major parties put fingers in ears and stamp collective feet]

What I find even more sad are the alternatives.

1)financial suicide and zero tackling of immigration(labour)
2)the crushing of the middle and advancing of the rich alongside zero tackling of immigration(Tory)
3)lies,crushing of the middle and zero tackling of immigration(Libdem)

All the Tory party have to do to win back their supporters from UKIP is to promise they are going to have an EU Referendum and pass the legislation before the next election.

Cameron held that promise of an EU Referendum out at the last election then withdrew it once elected and from then on no one trusted him.

One of the things I've learned in my life is that you can never go back. You might feel nostalgic for a remembered halcyon time, but even if we withdrew from the EU and did all the things that that rat-faced bloke is promising, we still wouldn't go back to our imagined past. What I think this vote for the fascists UKIP is betraying is dissatisfaction and fear, nothing more. And people want to feel secure again. Sadly UKIP's chances of doing that are less than nil. What we need to do is face the future as grown-ups, not as scared children, and do what we can to help shape. There is no magic solution to anything and sure as eggs is eggs ain't it.

I do wish that all the people grinching about national politics and voting UKIP in some misguided attempt to "show the bastards" would actually get involved in action and policy-shaping at a very local level and help make things happen. Democracy starts very close to home. Get out and join your parish council, your town council and your action groups and start to take part. Don't use your democratic right to vote to inflict vile self-serving bastards punishment on this country.

Think he'll have to do a bit more than that.

Tory backbenchers are surely very upset and worried about the result and will be looking to the next European elections and the General election and will ditch Cameron if he does not do something quick to fend off UKIP.

MEPs/MPs worried about losing their seat will not stay loyal.

Plots will thicken in the summer recess and the Tory party may install the new leader by the next party conference. That will be only 18 months before the General Election is due.

Could it be Boris?

I can't tell you why I would vote for them, because I won't be voting for them. I will tell you why I won't be voting for them though;

UKIP oppose clean renewable energy i.e. wind turbines etc. Instead they want to invest in shale gas fracking and coal fired power stations.

They want to bring back fox hunting.

They want to increase defense spending by 40%, buy nuclear weapons from the US and buy more arms.

They want to cut two million public sector jobs.

They want to introduce vouchers for private health insurance.

They deny climate change and want to ban schools from teaching it, despite overwhelming scientific proof.

They want to get rid of British and European human rights laws.

They want to deport all illegal immigrants with no amnesty, regardless of their circumstances.

They want to scrap the CPS and give the police the power to decide what cases they bring to court.

They want to 'End the promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism' and revise British history education so teachers only show Britain's imperialist past in a positive light.

They want to privatize key NHS services and GPs surgeries.

They want to privatize state schools and colleges.

They oppose same-sex marriage.

They have ties to far-right racist political organizations.

They want to scrap worker's rights i.e. maximum working hours, holiday entitlement, redundancy, sick pay and parental leave.

They want to make it harder for Trade Unions to operate.

They want a flat tax rate which would only benefit the rich.

They want to deny the vote to people who are unemployed.

They are party that has demonstrably shown to be full of sexist, homophobic, abilist, racist and xenophobic idiots, to put it nicely.

They are nothing more than the BNP in suits, they are fascism for posh people and their tagline should be, 'I'm not racist, but.....'

I think the entire country is well and truly sick of priveleged Eton/ Bullingdon boys making decisions for those living in the real world.

I would never vote UKIP. Aside from some of the above (thanks Gruffalo), a few of their candidates have been actively ableist, like the one who thought that all babies with Down Syndrome should be aborted.

I live in a Tory safe seat so it feels like every vote is wasted. But on the council in our area we now have ousted the Tories and have installed Green councillors. I'm waiting to hear if we've got a Green in the County Council too.

I don't see what any of the three main parties have to offer these days. They seem like different flavours of the same policies.

Blueskies I've got to say your post above and Gruffalo's post above you are a pretty damning counterpoint.

Maybe it's because I'm one of those evil immigrants who came here and have been paying taxes etc before becoming a naturalised citizen, but I really don't understand what the background of a politician has to do with it - judge them on their policies not on their backgrounds.

If their policies are even half as bad those that Gruffalo outlines then I don't care if UKIP is made up of hard working people who grew up on council estates and went to state schools. The policies are outrageous and disgusting no matter who came up with them.

GruffaloAteMySocks BRAVO!! You have saved me from writing the same

Racist Ignorant Bastards

I have no idea what UKIP stand for (haven't looked them up) but I hate all the 'main three' parties, the coalition two the most. I hear many people considering UKIP for the first time due to the anti Sahp stance of the main three and CB. Also many are worried by immigration.

I've belatedly realised that politics is making my illness worse (!) so - while there's no way I can ignore it - I'm posting before reading the thread, which I will have to do after a nice rest.

I perceive the UKIP gains as a real danger.
I'm taking it for granted that anyone who doesn't understand why I say 'danger' has not really looked into the party's political competence.
I think the Tories have won those seats for UKIP.
Ably assisted by the Mail and Sun, they have fed a steady diet of hate speech to voters.
They've made it acceptable to blame fellow citizens for one's problems, instead of looking to the root causes.
They've made money the only measure of human worth.
They've tricked ordinary people into siding with the rich against their own kind.
They've institutionalised the idea that large sectors of society are not quite human.

Dave, Iain and Gideon have pushed their party's rhetoric so far to the right, it now positively supports UKIP neo-fascism. I think they know this. I would guess they're planning for a ConKIP coalition in 2015; something I find frightening both for political reasons and the evidence that neither party can put a competent government policy together.

Wallison

UKIP makes idiots out of everyone who votes for them. It's hardly a solution.

This post, right here, exemplifies the reason UKIP is getting a quarter of the vote. The sheer arrogance of "If you were intelligent you'd vote the same way that I do" and "I know best, because I'm smart, and if you disagree it's not because you've thought through the situation and come to a different conclusion but because of your ignorant, slope-browed petty prejudices." People are sick of that. They've been getting it from politicians in all three parties for a decade and a half - as well as from large sections of the media who look down on them.

A Con/Ukip coalition would be a very scary prospect indeed

Anybody I know over 55 are voting for UKIP, I don't blame them tbh.
They see no alternative and as the list on page one have swallowed the propaganda that the media have given regarding immigration.
I believe they will win the next election.