Originally Posted by YI MEMBER

Quite frankly I think its terrible content for a speech and sounds like it could belong to the BNP. Making a conference about law and order, which is perfectly legitimate and a fantastic opportunity to promote our sound domestic policy into a racist rant I believe is truly bad for this party and whatever you personally think, or whatever other people think, its not really the way this party should be moving forward. Personally I think the statements are shaky at best- one in seven prison inmates is an immigrant....so six out of seven are British citizens! We all agree with UKIP's policy on immigration, that's part of the reason we support the party but I feel that economical and practical reasons to do with limited resources are a legitimate reason to believe in that policy, and these kind of sweeping assertions should be kept as statistics framed by a bigger picture, not used as rhetoric to persuade your audience that immigration is the main source of the social problems we face as the BNP do. I fully believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I believe in freedom of speech (not unconditionally) but in this case I think John West ought to consider the consequences of his decision to put his views on the platform when UKIP is experiencing great difficulty with its image and in attracting wider support. Personally, I will not be proud to be associated with a party that endorses this kind of rhetoric, partly because it is a terrible argument for an otherwise sound policy and partly because it shows a complete ignorance of commercial awareness for the future of this party by a prolific member who should be aware that image is everything.