Monday, 2nd February 2009

Saturday 21 January was a busy one and I diverted my journey to Peterborough to just make the BBC studios in Cambridge for a BBC News 24 interview. Though late arriving in Peterborough, I met UKIP members in Cathedral Place as they handed out leaflets and held up banners.

The news of the day was that Gordon Brown's 2007 "British jobs for British workers" now appeared meaningless, with several hundred Italian workers being shipped into the Total oil refinery at Immingham.

The public reaction to our presence was very interesting. The vast majority of people who approached us and were supportive were young people. All of them felt it was an outrage that their city had changed so much since 2004 and supported out view that the UK should be in control of its own borders.

Then I met a 16-year-old girl called Hannah. She explained that she had been turned down for a job at a local factory because she could not speak Polish – health and safety reasons being used to justify this.

Hannah, left, explains her situation to Nigel Farage

I wish the leaders of our three big parties had been there. They supported this open door, in spite of warnings from UKIP. The result, of course, is that there can be no guarantee of "British jobs for British workers" inside the EU.

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