A WEYMOUTH man’s e-mail exchange with a political party has gone viral after it was shared on social media.

Jason West sent an e-mail to the secretary of the Weymouth and Portland branch of UKIP after receiving a leaflet through his door asking for his vote at the upcoming European Elections, which will be held on Thursday, May 22.

Following the exchange with the secretary, who identifies himself as Alan A, Mr West published the post on his Facebook page.

It was then published on a political blog called Pride’s Purge, which calls itself an “irreverent look at British politics.”

From this website, it was shared over 5,000 times on Facebook and more than 1,000 times on Twitter.

Mr West said he was pleased that the exchange had gone viral.

He said: “I think it’s great that it has gone viral, I think as many people as possible should see it, and it is still being shared and retweeted.”

Mr West is originally from London and moved to Weymouth with his family five years ago.

His partner Janne Schack is originally from Denmark but moved to the UK 20 years ago and met Mr West in London.

They have two children together, who are five and seven years old.

In the discussion, Mr West asks the party if his children, who attend a local primary school, would have the party’s support.

The party replies that they would support Mr West and his family, before the conversation leads to a discussion about the statistical number of immigrants coming into Britain and into Weymouth and Portland.

Mr West explained his reasoning behind the e-mail: “I got the UKIP leaflet and it says they want local housing for local residents and they want school places to go to local children, and it made me think how long does it take to become local, and how do UKIP decide what is local or not.

“I only moved here five years ago and I think I feel local now. My partner has lived with me in Weymouth for five years and in Britain for 20 years, so she feels local, it didn’t make sense to me and I was slightly offended by it so I thought I would ask the local branch of UKIP and have a discussion about it.”

 To see the email exchange, visit http://bit.ly/1fYHfIH