AT the risk of making myself a target for DR Smith, I must take issue with the aggressive description of UKIP and its supporters (Letters August 21).

UKIP does not want to destroy the EU. We want a referendum (ASAP) with a view to leaving.

We have long since realised that our ability to control our country, its assets, trade and way of life has been undermined almost to the point of no return.

For us, this situation needs to be reversed and therefore it is the single and most important that must be resolved.

In the meantime, M.E.P.s who sit in Parliament merely pressing a yes/no/abstain button in response to hundreds of directives proposed by unknown committee members for 28 countries is hardly democracy at work.

I have no problem with him defending the New Labour Party, although to me under Blair and since, it has abandoned its traditions and today struggles to attain credibility.

It seems disconnected with the very people it purports to represent, ie. the working classes and union members. In my view, the wrong Miliband was allowed to be leader and many of its traditional voters have been abandoned.

In my conversations with those who Mr Smith would describe as the working class, there is a growing realisation that UKIP does put British people, our institutions and values first.

Who can deny that jobs, working pay and conditions have not been undermined via uncontrolled immigration? Furthermore, the pressure on our services has become unsustainable.

To flag these issues up is not racist.

There are many ingredients that have shown the EU to be wasteful and disjointed. I believe that UKIP could negotiate an amicable parting of the ways.

Doing so on the basis of threats, eg “if you won’t do that then we are going to do this”, which is where David Cameron appears to be heading, is unnecessarily confrontational.

Trade and co-operate with our European friends, yes. To be ruled and manipulated by the EU, I say no.

JC MARTIN, Hedge End.