UKIP

I agree with most of what has been posted on this subject so far. UKIP do appeal to the 'closet racist', but there is also an underlying feeling that they have floated to the top, like scum in dirty water, issues which need to be dealt with. If it is indeed the case that in immigration is putting undue strain on our services then a national debate needs to centre around this and all parties work together to find a solution that is both humanitarian and practical.
Fat chance.

I voted UKIP in the by-election following the resignation of David Miliband. Admittedly as a kind of protest vote against the complacency of the Labour Party who have been in power in my town since 1935 and do not have to do or say anything to gain votes. The result was as predicted Labour got in, but with a much reduced majority with UKIP achieving around 6000 votes. Sadly the Labour Party could put a donkey up as a candidate here and they would still gain power.

I think this is your first post, Cintique, so welcome to the site.
I found your post a little hard to read, but I got the general drift.
I would just like to tell you that my sister in a suburb of Manchester with virtually nil immigrants tells me that she has long waits to see her doctor mainly because of the large numbers of elderly people in the area.
Wouldn't it be disastrous if all the medical professionals from ethnic minority groups decided to up sticks and go 'home'!

The NHS would collapse!

I actually find it all quite worryingly reflective of a 1930's 'new' party which garnished grassroots support by seeming to address their concerns.

An overview of history reveals there is nothing much new under the sun - what goes around comes around.

Should we be worrying about the potential implications of UKIP success beyond the obvious shortfall on wider policies?

I think maybe we should, inthefields! But let's hope that, as Ella says, it will give the other parties enough of a shock to shatter their complacency - though I doubt it.

I watched a programme about a burial site in Winchester and tests showed that, even back then Britain was a very diverse multicultural society. UKIP are just a watered down 'acceptable' [I use that term very loosely] version of the BNP imo.

I think you are right, Tegan. And that is scary!

Either that tegan or they are cynically implying they are anti-immigration to get votes in the hope of being able to progress their anti-europe agenda.
Not only the NHS would collapse if our "immigrants" up sticks. Hotels acroos England would have to close. And many other businesses would be seriously adrift with much needed skills disappearing out of the door. We are indeed a nation of immigrants - and migrants - we have done our share of moving to other lands.

Moving to and taking over in some cases.

just one or two places bags . But that's alright isn't it because us white anglo saxon folk have a right to move into other countries, take over land that belongs to other people, infect them with nasty diseases and impose our ways on the few that survive the genocide.

And the rest is history, as they say. I don't think we can blame ourselves for the disease-spreading, at least not to begin with.

Here is another blog (much better) about what this UKIP blip may be all about really. Still worrying, whatever the cuase.

Well if you never sailed in, convinced that Britannia Rules the Waves and any bit of land you can stick a flag on, then you wouldn't swiftly kill the locals with your measles and your smallpox. Puts it in context really - what's a few basic wage jobs in comparison?

The early explorers were just that rather than conquerors. If it hadn't been western Europeans, it would have been some other group. It was an accident of history and geography. The point is, people explore, and they started exploring and spreading over the globe long before global imperialism took off – obviously, or there wouldn't have been 'natives' in the places Europeans then 'discovered'! The earlier European explorers did not know they would spread diseases against which the natives had no immunity.

This is not to lessen any of the evils that were perpetrated in the name of imperialism. Jared Diamond is good on this subject.

I thought the early exploreres were motivated by financial gain and often had wealthy investors behind them either that it they were looking for new land to settle.

Later they were sent by god to convert the heathens.

New land to settle, like the Vikings in Greenland, and Ireland and Britain. New land to settle, like the Pacific Ocean explorers, the Polynesians. New land to settle like the people who spread out from Africa to every continent and a huge number of the islands on the globe.

As I said, people explore. It's what we do. And we did it before anyone got imperialistic. Just who got imperialistic and when is an accident (or several) of history and geography. There's no point carrying on the guilt complex about it. Better to address problems we have now, in my view.

I'll keep off the religious missionary side of things because I'm liable to be rude about that.

Not exactly relevant to the OP but I just wondered what did people call the "missionary position" before the advent of nineteenth-century white missionaries?

Probably too busy doing it to call it anything.

Ella , like.!

"The only one approved by the Catholic Church" absent

Yes I know bags - I'm just stating an argument in extreme terms to highlight the ludicrous carping that goes on amongst the anti-immigration brigade. The US has thrived on immigration. The UK economy would be in the proverbial without. And UK nationals have done more than their fair share of turning themselves into immigrants elsewhere - and continue to do so.
Apparently here in Western Australia "poms" i.e. UK English immigrants, are considered "smelly". I guess this originated in the days when families came off boats where there were few washing facilities and lived in very poor housing on arrival.
(Also there was a prison colony here originally - and the prison was full of UK exports and stunk the town out with the smell of ordure and corpses apparently.)
This prejudice is now well established in WA culture.
My DS was surprised the other day when a customer said (in a strong Indian accent) "You're a pom aren't you. But you don't smell!!"

'What's a few basic wage jobs in comparison?'

Depends on whether you are desperate to find a basic wage job in these straightened times I suppose.

True of course petullus - allowed a little hyperbole maybe when talking big picture and 400 years timespan? And I am not aware of any evidence that immigrants are in fact snatching basic wage jobs from UK born people who want them. Always happy to look at data though if anyone has any.

I find the hyperbole very negative and think it is often based on erroneous assumptions. I really recommend Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel. It puts a lot of historical events and (past) Eurasian supremacy in better perspective. (BTW, he includes mediterranean Africa in his definition of Eurasian).