Advice for recipients of BNP and/or anti-UKIP spam

Since joining UKIP I have received lots of anti-UKIP and pro-BNP spam. On one occasion, I had to threaten to report Andrew Edwards (aka Richard English) to the police to stop him sending his BNP propaganda.

Today I've received more spam from a new source - a BNP troll who calls himself John McHale. This got me thinking about where these BNP activists are harvesting UKIP email addresses from.

There are two ways they can be getting them - either by stealing them or obtaining them "legitimately" as an employee of UKIP or a branch co-ordinator and then using them for illegal purposes. Personally, I'm inclined to believe it's the latter.

So, what should you do if you find yourself on these spam mailing lists?

The first thing you need to do is reply to the email (copying in everyone else on the email if their addresses are listed) and tell them you want them to stop sending you emails.

If the emails keep coming you can report it to their service provider or email provider as spam. There will be a section on their website telling you how to report abuse. To find out who their provider is, go to the website that ends their email address - ie. live.co.uk, hotmail.com, blueyonder.co.uk.

If they still email you, contact the police and report it as harassment.

I've asked UKIP to investigate where these people are getting their email addresses from so with a bit of luck a source will be identified soon.