Why NOT to vote UKIP Part 1

 I am afraid I am going to have to do this over several blogs, taking one topic from the UKIP manifesto at a time.

Reasons NOT to vote UKIP.

Immigration.
I don’t suppose that many people realise that to be counted as an immigrant a person only has to live in the country for a year. If they leave after that year, they are still counted as an immigrant for that year. Now this includes people who come to Britain for a 1year work contract as well as students who are only here for their education and go back as soon as they have qualified. No one tells us of this. Not unless you go on the website of the Office for National Statistics, and how many of us do? (OK, I did, but it was the first time ever!)

I am afraid that UKIP’s thoughts on immigration will generate racism and
xenophobia.

Nigel Farage has recently said that UKIP will repeal the Racial Discrimination Act, at least as far as employment goes, as I understand it. Now Mr Farage has said that this act is no longer needed because the concept of ‘race’ does not exist in Britain any more. Where have you been, Mr Farage? Only yesterday I heard someone saying on the radio that if they sent in a form with an apparently British name, and an identical one with an apparently ‘Asian’ or ‘black’ name, with everything else the same. Only the ‘British’ would get an interview.

UKIP is saying that there should be no free movement of labour in the EU, and cites the large numbers of potential Eastern Europeans that are now free to come to Britain, but we don’t worry about the French, Italians, Germans, yes and Irish who are free to come, it seems to be just the ‘new’ EU countries they are concerned about.


Now contrary to received wisdom, the majority of immigrants come here to work and not receive our benefits. (Actually, people argue against themselves here. They say that all these immigrants come here and doss around on benefits all day, then they complain they are taking jobs from British workers. Taking ‘our’ jobs has been an argument used in the 50s and 60s too.) They also, because they are generally young, use the NHS far less and are statistically less likely to claim unemployment benefit. It appears that only 5% of immigrants will claim benefits, while over 40% of British-born will do so.

Everyone is saying that the National Health Service is in crisis. There is certainly a problem there, but it will get worse if we cannot employ immigrants. We are not producing enough nurses and doctors in this country, I’m afraid. Why? I can’t answer that question I’m afraid, except to say that I would not want to be a doctor or nurse in this day and age of litigation!

This sounds as though I am all for immigration without controls, but that is not true. I do think that there should be some control. We are after all a small country, but we should not try to ban some people and yet let others in willy-nilly. Mr Farage’s ideas on a points system seems to me to have merit, but when he starts to only cite the Poles and Romanians, then that is dangerous and it is the fuelling of hate towards others that worries me.