I can totally understand why people vote for UKIP, the main parties are totally discredited and who wants to vote for the status quo? At least people who vote UKIP can legitimately say they are choosing something different.
Farage is a good public face for the party but can anyone name anyone else in the party who isn't a complete lunatic, homophobe or racist? This is important because god forbid if UKIP were to get enough MPs to form part of a coalition government these people would be government ministers!
I can't help feeling that the race issue is playing into UKIP's hands. I think it's a handy smokescreen for their intentions to remove employment rights and dismantle the NHS. I doubt if half the people who voted for UKIP would have done so if they knew about their agenda on employment rights and the NHS.
I don't think anyone can be certain about what would happen if we left the EU, but there is a school of thought that says lots of multinational companies would leave the UK if that were the case causing massive unemployment. Is it really worth leaving the EU if it means the economy would be far weaker than it is now? Like or loathe the EU (I particularly loathe the corruption and lack of accountability but this could be reformed) there are economic benefits to being part of a larger trading bloc rather than a small economy trying to compete with much larger ones. Farage and co could potentially be proved right about leaving the EU. But what a costly mistake if they are proved to be wrong.