25-06-2016, 20:56
(This post was last modified: 25-06-2016, 21:02 by St Charles Owl.)
A German friend of mine said to me yesterday that this comes as no surprise because we never really bought into the EU like the Germans did. Our entry into the Common Market was contentious 40 years ago and we have never been comfortable even referring to ourselves as European!! We never remotely looked like joining the Euro, always hanging on to Sterling like a favorite blanket!!
While I would have preferred to see a remain victory, our island mentality meant it was only sooner or later that something liked this happened. Cameron actually should be applauded for being brave enough to stick his neck out and promise a referendum in the first place. He thought he would win, he should have won but didn't and that's the risk he took. All the other main parties essentially didn't want to hold the referendum, not because they thought it wasn't needed, but because they like everyone else knew that this might go either way. Cameron had the balls to do it, Labour, Lib Dems and that Scottish mob didn't!!
I can't stand Farage, nor virtually anything he stands for, but I do agree with something he said yesterday. He is not in favor of completely shutting our borders, we will always have immigration to and from the UK, what he wants to see is us using a point system like Australia do to control immigration. They have used this system to great effect since the 1980s I believe and to this day they only let in those who will contribute to the society they have already against a set criteria. I think that makes sense and in no way is this racist in any way, it treats everyone looking to come into the country the same way, if you have the right attributes to collect enough points then you get in. I know this system well, having lived in Australia as a kid I thought it would be a good place for me and my wife to live and and have a go over there back in the early 90s, but when we went through the points system we missed the threshold required by a few points and were denied entry. We would get through it now because my brother lives there and I now have a degree but at the time we missed out. We were pissed, but it was fair.
While I would have preferred to see a remain victory, our island mentality meant it was only sooner or later that something liked this happened. Cameron actually should be applauded for being brave enough to stick his neck out and promise a referendum in the first place. He thought he would win, he should have won but didn't and that's the risk he took. All the other main parties essentially didn't want to hold the referendum, not because they thought it wasn't needed, but because they like everyone else knew that this might go either way. Cameron had the balls to do it, Labour, Lib Dems and that Scottish mob didn't!!
I can't stand Farage, nor virtually anything he stands for, but I do agree with something he said yesterday. He is not in favor of completely shutting our borders, we will always have immigration to and from the UK, what he wants to see is us using a point system like Australia do to control immigration. They have used this system to great effect since the 1980s I believe and to this day they only let in those who will contribute to the society they have already against a set criteria. I think that makes sense and in no way is this racist in any way, it treats everyone looking to come into the country the same way, if you have the right attributes to collect enough points then you get in. I know this system well, having lived in Australia as a kid I thought it would be a good place for me and my wife to live and and have a go over there back in the early 90s, but when we went through the points system we missed the threshold required by a few points and were denied entry. We would get through it now because my brother lives there and I now have a degree but at the time we missed out. We were pissed, but it was fair.