REGARDING a letter published on January 10 from Averil Sumners, UKIP.

I write on behalf of the four "hags" who attended the UKIP meeting in Tutshill.  Far from being silly, the term "hag" was clearly intended to be offensive and demeaning.

What was probably not intended was our awareness of it – perhaps a lesson here about the importance of managing one's social media presence wisely, particularly when one is in the public eye.

Richard Leppington's behaviour toward us prior to the meeting was aggressive and belligerent.

We stood well away from the entrance, quietly handing out information from Hope not Hate, as well as information from the BBC website about net immigration figures.

Another UKIP councillor who attended the meeting in fact attempted to apologise for Cllr. Leppington's behaviour.

We then attended the meeting quietly – there was no heckling or disruption. Along with several other attendees, we asked polite questions about UKIP's policies when questions were invited by the chair.

Why a call for us to reveal our identities?  We've done nothing which requires our names to be public currency, nor do we hold public office or claim to speak for anyone but ourselves.

Leppington holds a public office – impossible to do anonymously.  He insulted us crudely via his Facebook page, which he has made publicly accessible, a choice he need not have made.

A half-hearted apology was finally placed on Cllr. Leppington's Facebook page, and the offending post was deleted after a number of days.

Our complaint to Gloucestershire County Council was not anonymous and consisted of an extended but ultimately unsatisfactory conversation with the representative named in the article.

The council does not seem inclined to apply their own equal opportunities policy to their own councillors: the policy states that they will "continue to improve, review, monitor, and build upon the current make-up of our workforce to better service the diversity of our community".

The link Cllr. Leppington posted on Facebook on 24/4/12 to Enoch Powell's infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech does not seem to indicate his understanding of his responsibilities toward servicing the diversity of our community.

So yes, we certainly do expect an apology – a genuine apology.  We expect an elected member of government to conduct himself and his communications responsibly.

We expect an elected member of the government to be prepared to have civil discussions with people who don't necessarily agree with him – surely that's part of the job.

We don't expect him to belittle and intimidate members of the public. And we don't expect him to behave in a manner unbecoming to anyone, much less someone holding public office.

And we don't expect people invited to a public political meeting looking for answers to be given misleading and disingenuous answers designed to stir up emotions rather than having reasoned conversations about important matters that affect all of us who live here, British or foreign, male or female.

So let's be clear – UKIP and Richard Leppington do not speak for us or represent our views, nor apparently for the majority of Britons and British residents.

We don't want Richard Leppington to have any information about our identities, as he is not someone we care to have any dealings with, and we are very uncomfortable, given his response to our presence and some of the comments from his Facebook "friends" (which we have record­ed, though he has deleted them from his page), nor with him having any information about us at all, other than that we are concerned residents of the Forest who value this country, and don't want to see this country damaged by what can only be either ignorance, or worse, cynical manipulation of the public.

UKIP will only flourish in the Dean if we let them.

It's our own apathy that lets them use fear and ignorance to promote their dubious views and fuzzy thinking.

One of the questions asked at the meeting was whether UKIP were fit to run government. We would strongly suggest that the councillors we met were unfit for a role in local politics, much less in a bigger political arena.

– Resident, Tutshill.