this isn’t “white racism.” Most of the fears about the spread of Islam are very different than those that accompanied other groups into England; that Islamist protests frequently occur, that a heckuva lot more British Muslims join ISIS than other immigrant groups joining analogous organizations, that British Muslims are far more hostile than even the most conservative non-Muslim Brits to womens, LGBT, and minority rights, that Muslims in Britain have demanded anti-blasphemy laws, stuff the other immigrant groups did not do.
I don’t disagree with this, but leaving the EU, though a necessary first step, isn’t going to solve the problem of mass Muslim immigration- the era of mass Pakistani immigration was pre-EU. This is only the beginning of what the UK needs to do.
Yes—if you don’t want Muslim immigrants, a good first step is not colonizing Muslim countries.
Yeah well I’d wait for cites from Derek. He’s already on record as being one of the most kneejerk anti-Muslim people on this board.
Tell that to Sweden.
Can you guys going on about muslimi whatever, just… sod off this thread?
Damn I can’t believe those crazy kids actually did it! That’s the last time I use Gibraltar as a bellwether.
If you chose Gibraltar, a British enclave, isolated in Spain, with no more than 20k voters, as a bellwether, don’t give up your dayjob.
Agreed. You’d think that Cameron’s government would have set up the vote as requiring a supermajority (i.e. at least 3/5 or 2/3 or even 3/4 of the vote) to effect a change to the status quo, especially for such an important issue.
I’m not as familiar with voting rules in the U.K., but we have precedence for supermajority requirements here in the U.S. for important votes, including the 3/5 supermajority needed in the U.S. Senate to invoke cloture and cut off further debate, the 2/3 supermajority needed in the U.S. Senate to ratify a treaty, the 2/3 supermajority needed in Congress to override a presidential veto, and the 3/4 supermajority of state legislatures needed to ratify an amendment to the Constitution.
It seems odd that Cameron’s government would have allowed itself to be boxed into such a corner, and that the direction of the country could be altered by a simple majority vote, especially with the vote as close as was predicted.
I really must start using those smileys in my posts.
And didn’t all the pro pollers predict a remain win anyhow?
Just for the record, gold spiked 6%, bitcoin 6%, nikkei is plunging 7%, pound 11%.
Paypal spread for Euro Pound purchases is at 15%!
Fantastic news.
I wonder whether the EU can survive after this. You have large pockets of Eurosceptisim all over the continent and they have been invigorated.
+1
I wonder if he can use this rule retroactively. A referendum is just a gauge for what the public wants, it’s not a final decision. Maybe he can still veto it and say the majority was too close to enact it.
Sinn Fein is calling for a referendum on uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. We have seen this movie before, and it involved a lot of violence.
I’m sorry. Only now it hit me, the tone of your posts. It’s been a long night.
Indeed, and just one hour before the polls closed the bookies were 8/2 remain/leave. The foreign exchangers, who actually have skin in the game, made the pound jump 3% earlier this week. The amount of money that changed hands this night must be enough to buy a country somewhere.
I reckon a lot of people voted to leave without actually believing it would be possible.
Or Germany (Togo and Tanganyika have large Muslim populations today, but they didn’t in 1884). Or Austria. Or Greece. Or, well, just about anywhere in the continent outside England, France and Holland. (Not that ‘having colonized Muslim countries in the past’ is in any way justification for allowing Muslims to move to your country in the present day, but this particular objection is factually as well as morally silly).
When Britons joined the EU we were told it was an economic union. But over the years Brussels has expanded its remit to cover matters such as justice, policing, foreign affairs, etc. We didn’t sign up to be ruled from Brussels. I wonder how Americans would feel if they were not absolute masters in their own country.