The rise of UKIP

[NuclearDevice]

Quite surprising events this past week seeing a supposed 'political' party with no real economic policies, and just a single "stop immigration into UK" line, winning massively in clapped out Clacton to elect UKIP's first MP, and narrowly missing out on another in a safe Labour constituency. The European election and now and MP - a phenomenal rise.

If politicians haven't yet got the message after Thursday, they never will. There's an exceedingly strong desire from a growing majority in this country that want to stop unmitigated immigration from EU and non EU countries into the UK, and that people are sick and tired of being ruled by Brussels. Cameron's hollow pledge to have a referendum in the next parliament and all the other bluff and bluster he comes out with is something I can't believe in. If he'd really wanted to do something he could have done so in this 5 year stint in power.

I never want UKIP to hold any sort of power in this country. They are extreme xenophobes and it se

[monty1]

Some of your comments show just how well the media have got across the UKIP message on anti EU and anti-immigration.

The UK presently does not have free borders with the EU countries, we did not sign up to the Schengen Agreement, the UK and Ireland were the only countries that didn't sign up.

So any immigration is the decision of the UK government.

And Norway, whilst not in the EU. is in the EFTA, the European Free Trade Association, along with Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland and in order to trade with the EU they had to sign up to the Schengen Agreement so they do have open borders with the EU and we don't!!

Being outside the EU will have major consequences for this country that people need to understand. yes, we could negotiate an agreement with the EU but ask the US how easy that is, they have been trying for decades and just about to finalise it after years of negotiation.

And contrary to popular belief, you cant just come in to this country and qualify for benefits of

[NuclearDevice]

Monty
we may have not signed up to the Schengen agreement, but that doesn't prevent all nations within the EU having an equal right to go and live wherever they want within the EU.

The difference in the UK with Schengen is that you still have to show your passport which means in theory that they can stop an "unwanted" EU citizen, or someone from another country. Whereas in those countries that have signed up, once you're over the border you can move wherever you want without ever once showing a passport. So an Albanian who rows his boat to Italy, can then move wherever without being uncovered (to Calais).

The other side of the coin is that any Estonian Latvia, Slovak, Bulgarian or Croat (the newest member) has every right to live and work in the UK, and once here will be entitled to certain benefits.

I've not been to Norway, but Switzerland was most certainly not part of Schengen initially and only signed up in the last decade.

The US is a slightly different case, having had its

[NuclearDevice]

Plus, anecdotally, much of this has been lower skilled migrants than those that you mention. Yes the UK has a skills shortage but why not have a system that positively discriminates like NZ and Oz.

There were plenty of Europhiles who told us we'd lose millions of jobs in the UK if we didn't adopt the Euro, because they're our biggest trading partner etc...

That didn't happen did it ?

In fact not being part of it saved us when the world's and Europe's and the UK's debt bubble burst, despite Blair and Brown's excesses and largesse with the benefit system, crappy PPI/PFI deals and excessive budgets for the NHS as well as worthless & abandoned computerisation projects. They bribed the voters and look where it got us. Like every Socialist Govt, it ended in debt.

The same scare mongering stories will no doubt be wielded again if we ever have an EU referendum. Guess what, I'll not believe a word of it