Really, Ray? So Britain's historical role in the world is not relevant? Two wrongs don't make a right so even if you can find something odious in other nations' histories, using that as an excuse to abdicate responsibility for British colonialism is pretty facile.
So you haven't personally colonised any country. Guess what? I haven't personally tried to impose Sharia law on anyone, but as a (albeit very lapsed) Muslim, I am condemned under UKIPs policies and views.
I'll happily debate both the positive and negative impacts of British colonial history with you Mas - but perhaps on another thread. However, wheeling out "colonialism guilt" without an enormous contextual background as part of this debate is roughly as useful as shouting "racist". Can I recommend Thomas Sowells masterly trilogy "
Race and Culture", "
Conquest and Culture" and "
Migrations and Cultures" which investigates the issue with commendable thoroughness and acuity?
YOU don't want to get rid of anyone, but UKIP do. That is why I am so surprised at you. Whether you personally support that policy is not really relevant as long as you support the organisation that supports it. When you vote UKIP, you cannot state that you only support stronger border controls. You vote for ALL their policies with one single cross on the ballot paper.
Before answering this thread, I thought I had better check my facts. So I re-read the official UKIP policy on their website. I also read their manifestos for both the European and local elections. I can find nothing there that calls for repatriation, expulsion or anything similar. Or, for that matter, anything remotely anti-muslim.
So I can only see three possibilities.
1) I have missed some critical document which lays out such a policy or
2) That there is some hidden policy set of which you are aware, but I am not
3) That you have been made to think that UKIP has policies which in fact they don't have, by parties or individuals in whose interests it is to rubbish UKIP.
I will confess that I found an excess of material relating to immigration, and (to my mind) insufficient on what I consider to be the core issue of leaving the EU. I think that this is both a tactical and strategic mistage, and had I been asked, I would have counselled against it.
You're right, shouting racist to stifle debate is unhelpful, but then so is failing to call a spade a spade.
An unfortunate choice of metaphor.
The UKIP may claim to ban former BNP members form joining. How exactly do they enforce this? It's an very easy claim to make, because they know that there is NO way for anyone to dispute it. The rhetoric and behaviour of certain UKIP members paint a different picture...
I suspect that they can only police it by exception - ie by ejecting from membership someone who it discovers was a BNP member. Although BNP membership lists were in the public domain some years ago, as a number of people lost their jobs by virtue of their membership.
It is a trick as old as politics to impute foul hidden motives to ones opponents, and to seek amongst their more extreme supporters those who can be held up as the "true face" of whatever-it-is-you-want-to-rubbish. It behoves all of us to look more carefully at the actual facts and evidence, and not to take positions based on either emotion or on ethnic, political, religious or sectarian loyalties.