As a political commentator and a fairly argumentative tweeter I have talked to dozens of supporters of Ukip with varying levels of civility, discussing everything from certain types of EU regulations to controversial statements made by junior and senior members of the organisation, and over the months of back and forth arguing I discovered something rather interesting. When talking to these members one comment is almost expected to appear in the conversation, no it is not a supreme hatred of the European Union, workers rights of a distrust of everything foreign but talk of an organised smear campaign being carried out by the political establishment, the national press and not surprisingly the European Union.
After providing someone with evidence linking Ukip members to offensive comments, whether it is Roger Helmers multitude of inappropriate comments levelled against everything from homosexuals to seal cubs or Nigel Farage's own racist comments about Romanians and other foreign speakers an individual will either mark the publication as "leftist", a statement that does not change the validity of the quotations or it will be marked as part of an organised smear campaign made because the political and media establishment are afraid of the rise of Ukip.
I'm not going to go into details about how Nigel Farage a privately educated former conservative whose only real work experience is in the financial sector is really a part of the establishment or why the party is funded by wealthy millionaires with a grudge against the conservative party but I will give some advice on future conduct. What Ukip and its supporters need to understand is that reporting the news does not and has never been considered part of a smear campaign and perhaps in the future they should stop making comments that the majority of the population find offensive especially if they want to represent the same people on a local, national or regional level. Ukip can only become a mature political party once they stop with the paranoid assumption that everyone is out against them and no longer resort to childish and petty insults when they are challenged to a reasonable debate on immigration or asked to make a policy statement that does not immediately go back to the EU like the Deputy Leaders favourable position on the privatisation of the National Health Service. Until then Ukip will always be a wasted vote.
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