He's never been a MP, UKIP has never been considered a "major party" (how is this even defined?), there was no election in 2014, UKIP won 12.6% in 2015. He's clearly representing some people but your facts are way off.

Sorry, I was mistaken on the MP front.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_United_Kingdom_local_elec...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_European_Parliament_elect...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party#Entering... "In March 2014, Ofcom awarded UKIP "major party status"."

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-rele... "Ofcom’s initial view is that UKIP may qualify for major party status in England and Wales for the General Election and English local elections on 7 May 2015."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-31906154 "Ofcom says UKIP, but not Greens, are 'major party'"

That's very interesting about the official "major party status", thanks for sharing that. I was only considering General Elections, which are a fairer representation of a parties vote share (despite FPTP) as not all councils vote in local elections each year.

Worth remembering the dirty tricks employed against him:

'The election of a Conservative MP could have been declared void if he had filed accurate returns that showed he had overspent on his campaign to beat Nigel Farage, a court has heard.

Craig Mackinlay, an accountant, stands accused along with his election agent and a party official of deliberately submitting “woefully inaccurate” expenditure returns.'

As an electoral force, UKIP were very successful in European elections. It is reasonable to say that they were a major consideration in deciding to call the referendum.

He has never been an MP.

There also wasn't an election in 2014. His party won 1 seat in 2015 and got 12.6% of the total vote.

12.6% is really high to be getting only 1 seat, but it definitely isn't 20%.

He's talking about the MEP elections.

It's been very easy to dismiss UKIP's parliamentary holding only because the UK is first past the post, had it been more representative these last few decades, we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Instead we've had two decades of Tory and Labour governments effectively sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalalalaaaa, we can't hear you, growth is king" when anyone mentioned the word immigration. Or talking about lower immigration targets, while at the same time the treasury was producing budget forecasts based on mass immigration continuing.

I have to agree that it is bizarre that the two main parties were talking all about growth while failing to acknowledge the role immigration was playing in that growth, and especially to the demographics of the workforce.

Perhaps if they had been more upfront, discussing how (in a country where we are not so far away from having more retired people than workers), letting more young workers in is playing an important role in the economy.

Then you hear that Teresa May herself suppressed reports that stated that the average immigrant was contributing more in terms of taxation (net) than the average Brit (for the demographic reasons above). This suggests that they were not just 'sticking their fingers in their ears', they were actively promoting an anti-immigrant agenda.

Well, I find that's obviously a very biased type of report based on a flawed premise. An economic migrant will eventually have kids and grow old, so in 40 years time the 'average' migrant won't be contributing more. It's just that they are right now. Or, perhaps worse, they'll take a large proportion of their total earnings out of the UK in a decade and move back home.

Anyway, putting aside that, they knew they couldn't release reports like that because they had to pretend to be anti-immigration.

So rather than having the conversation which was vitally necessary to reduce anti-immigration feelings, they were secretly pro-immigration, and even saw it as a necessity, so they just suppressed it all.

> Because that's obviously a very biased type of report based on a flawed premise.

Why must it have been? Could it not have been a reasoned report by a renowned expert in demographics? Your statement that anything pro-immigration is automatically propaganda is ridiculous, and reminds me of Gove's "we have all had enough of experts" guff.

> An economic migrant will eventually have kids

Who will join the workforce...in fact this is the only group who have an increasing birth rate in Britain.

> Or, perhaps worse, they'll take a large proportion of their total earnings out of the UK in a decade and move back home.

Its kind of hard to take the tax you paid and the profits you earned your employer back home.

Because it obviously isn't reasoned. I actually really hate Gove, but if you look at his whole quote rather than just cherry pick the first half, he was bang on. The actual whole quote was roughly "have had enough of experts who say they know what is best, but get it consistently wrong". Economic experts predicted a recession in the UK immediately after a leave Brexit vote, and they were completely wrong. The experts usually quoted are institutionally biased to be pro-EU, pro-immigration, pro-free market capitalism.

And also, the British people have decided they want smaller families, that the world needs less people, not more. Politicians are allowing mass immigration in direct defiance of a desire for a smaller population, and smaller families.

If birth rate is so important, why not do a national campaign to have more babies, rather than get migrants to move here? Because, as educated, liberal people, we know there are too many people in the world and growth above all else is bad. So why should we be ok with allowing population growth through the back door?

In fact, right now the UK government is penalizing people on benefits with more than 2 children, rather than celebrating the birth of a new future worker! They are cutting tax breaks for families, reducing financial incentives to have children.

Government actions never seem to match the reasons given for immigration. For example, we've known for decades we need more nurses, but instead of encouraging people to take up the profession we are now charging them tuition fees. Shouldn't we be giving student nurses grants instead?

Honestly, it's insane. None of it makes sense.

Finally, if you spent 10 seconds thinking about it, if someone takes 20-40% of their lifetime earnings out of the UK, it means they're not paying the VAT they'd have paid on all that money if they'd spent it in the UK.

So, yes, ultimately they paid less tax than a native, plus lose the UK wealth when the transfer it, which you can almost certainly predict is conveniently left out of those reports.