chikrodah

Yet again, we've got evidence as to why so many have walked away from UKIP.

I live in a town where there has been an influx of Eastern Europeans. 99.9% of them are upstanding citizens - in fact, there's been more attacks on Eastern Europeans than by Eastern Europeans on "us Brits", locally. Both Polish and Portugese shops have been attacked by local yobs. No Poles or Portugese have been implicated in attacks on local shops.

Despite the rhetoric, the fact that 6 out of every 7 criminals "banged up" are still British suggests that this is typical around the UK. Despite this influx distorting a local council ward's demographic this year, the ward's voters chose overwhelmingly to vote other than BNP, suggesting that the migrants were not seen as a major problem.

Economic migrants (not immigrants, by and large) have been a part of British culture for hundreds of years. Most are here to earn an income to send back to their families. They are no more likely to commit crime than the average UKIP branch member and statistically less likely to than the average UKIP MEP. Most of them go home after a couple of years, bitter at the way they have been treated by the British. Some stay and endure decades of abuse because they've been daft enough to choose to live here.

The impotence of our immigration policies is not the fault of European immigrants. It's the fault of the EU's policies. We lessen ourselves by attacking people rather than changing the system. Generalities such as those mentioned in the opening posts will not win UKIP votes from the intelligent swing voter. They will not garner votes from the the intelligent non-voter. They will encourage the media to tell everybody that UKIP is no better than the BNP.

The issue with the prison overcrowding is as much due to the knee-jerk political reactions after 9/11 and 7/7 as anything else. There are certain procedures (designed for short-term emergency overcrowding) still in place after 18 months, due to the political need to keep certain classes of charged individuals in remand rather than on bail. That's exacerbating decades of political hokey-cokeying made worse by the Labour government's inability to reconcile necessity with reality since 1997. Where are UKIP's real plans for law and order? Or is this it?

YI MEMBER

I disagree with 'political correctness' as much as you, but I also believe that the image of this party is a real problem for us right now and therefore playing up to the exact issue which has caused that problem is unnecessary. However, taking facts out of context and ignoring counter statistics in order to exaggerate a point does not count as 'telling the truth' in my book.

Michael Heaver

Hear hear. As a friend of mine once said; political correctness is one thing, the government taking all of my money is quite another.

YI MEMBER

I also have had to put up with abuse and accusations of racism by association. I find it increasingly difficult to defend the party when they present me with evidence such as some of the posts made here and I don't know what I can do about that. It seems that some members have an intention of destroying this party's future which is a real shame. When will they realise that by going for the BNP vote, they are losing everyone elses? Let those who wish blame all of our problems on immigrants join the BNP and lets capture a more intelligent audience and move this party forward.

YI MEMBER

You appear to be suggesting that East Europeans ARE the criminal element in this country. Didn't you read those wonderful statistics? If you change the wording but keep the facts, it says- Only one out of seven prisoners are migrants- Or put another way, Six out of seven prisoners are British. How can you use this fact to back up your view that East Europeans are more criminal and more dangerous than British people? How you arrive at the conclusion that it is not racist to make a sweeping assertion regarding a particular race that is entirely unsupported by fact I do not know.

We all agree I think it is safe to say, that we need to leave the EU so that the migrants who are criminals can be deported, that is what we should be talking about, not overloading the issue by making contentious and baseless claims which I can assure you any intelligent voters will not be convinced by.

Michael Heaver

Some of the wisest words ever written on these forums.

YI MEMBER

We are not talking about the constitution or the official party line here, we are talking about the way it is interpreted and promoted in the public forum that is an issue, and that is where the 'indistinguishable' problem arises. I doubt that the average voter reads every party's constitution before they make a judgement on that party and therefore if a significant number of prominent people portray the party line in certain way, it is that way in which the party is viewed, without regard to the constitution.

HM

C_steam made it very much sound like his personal opinion, and, having the resources, he ought to have foundations if he is going to go calling UKIP "xenophobes". Our public image of a party similar to the scummy BNP definitely needs to change.

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mkpdavies

Thanks for reminding me why I had to leave UKIP and it was 100% the right thing to do.

You deserve to fish from the swamp for the minimal fringe vote with that attitude.

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YI MEMBER

Sadly, prejudice tends to make people shy away from evidence which does not support that prejudice- they must realise that this behaviour doesn't make that evidence go away though, it just makes people sceptical of everything they have to say, thereby invalidating any good points they have.