Hello.
I'm Roger, I live in Wales and have been an active UKIP member since May 2001, just before the last general election. I had never really been too interested in politics up to that point, but always instictively knew that the EU was damaging to Britain. I happened to turn on the TV one night and saw UKIP's party election broadcast. It featured, as I remember, the then leader Jeffrey Titford detailing all that was wrong with the EU in a simple and factual manner. As I continued to watch, I waited for him to say something that I disagred with. It never happened. I took a note of the web address, had a good look through the site and joined within the hour. It suddenly occured to me that I was not alone in my mistrust of the EU and a weight seemed to lift from my shoulders. Finally I could do something to help rescue Britain from the EU.
I was put in touch with my local candidate for the general election and met other local members, of which there were very few in those days. A few months later I was asked to set up an official UKIP Wales website. There was already an unofficial site, but the author, by his own admission did not update it very often and was happy to pass it on to someone else. The site is
www.ukipwales.org I don't think this site will mind the plug as I've had their link on my site for many months.
I was also asked to produce a UKIP Wales newsletter. The letter goes out about every 3 months or so depending on funds and is generally well received.
You may be asking, If I've had a link on my own site to here, why have I only joined the forum now. Partly because I have a thousand and one things to do yesterday, and partly because you sometimes post things on websites without taking a lot of notice of it, if that makes sense. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees.
I stood in the Welsh Assembly election last year in a red-hot Labour seat and polled a credible 3.6%. This year we were obviously heavily involved with the EU election. In Wales we have an added problem of a fourth major party, Plaid Cymru. Despite this we came fourth and knocked the Dim-Lebs INTO phpbb_fifth place.
Next year will be the general election again. I intend to stand in a local constituency and whilst I think It will still be tough to make a mark in Wales, I think that big things may happen in othe areas, particularly the south-west and south-east of England.
Anyway, that's enough and I look forward to joining the debate.
Roger