Brexit

[Tartar Horde]

(23 May 2016, 21:48)CharlesHarris Wrote: If Hillary gets elected I understand that a substantial group of legislators in Texas wants to execute plans to secede from the Union and become a Republic. Military veterans with an Honorable Discharge from any branch of service who are US citizens would be allowed to apply for permanent residence, as would retired and serving law enforcement, fire, public health and emergency medical services.

http://www.thetnm.org/
http://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/mos...to-secede/
http://www.ibtimes.com/texas-secession-m...es-2368036

I don't know how they would view UK expats, but if they really follow through, it might be interesting to watch.

I think most Texans wouldn't mind a few ex pats, after all we would be immigrants whose first language was English, I hear it's getting a bit rare down there lol. I'd certainly consider moving to Texas, great Hog hunting so I hear?

[Tartar Horde]

(23 May 2016, 23:10)CharlesHarris Wrote: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...paris.html

YEEHAW!! Texas Secessionists Already Have an Embassy in Paris

Secession talk is heating up again in Texas. Will France once again recognize it as its own country?

PARIS — Near Place Vendôme in the most luxurious corner of Paris, a few steps from the Ritz and across from a new Louis Vuitton store, but high above the street where nobody is likely to notice, a legend engraved in stone marks the site of the Ambassade du Texas, and informs the passer-by below that on 29 September 1839 France was the first nation to recognize that short-lived republic.

This historical relic of Lone Star independence in la ville lumière is a quaint reminder of the nation that once was and, between the etched lines, of its particularly grim, even gruesome, history of slavery, anti-Hispanic racism, grand delusions and grinding privations. French recognition, after all, was not a matter of idealism or ideology, but of greed, and much of Texas at the time was a hell on earth that some of the cynical French tried to sell to their countrymen as paradise...

In 2009, Texas Gov. Rick Perry flirted with the notion of secession, if Washington “continues to thumb their noses at the American people, who knows what may come out of that?...”

François Lagarde, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas who is now back in his native France, is one of the few scholars who’s looked closely at that period from a European perspective. In the 2003 book, The French in Texas, which he edited, Lagarde notes that while the slave-holding guarantee encouraged immigration from the southern United States, it complicated hoped-for annexation because of Northern opposition, and it caused a problem when it came to desperately needed international recognition.

The French and British, clearly, did not give a damn about the so-called Monroe Doctrine warning foreign powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. They were all over the place, in fact, and ready to protect their interests. But the British, who had abolished slavery in 1833, would not recognize the independence of Texas “until the Texas Congress ratified a secret treaty on the suppression of the slave trade in 1842,” according to Lagarde. (As I wrote in my book, Our Man in Charleston, last year, stopping the African slave trade was a British obsession.)

The French weren’t so picky. They still had slaves in their colonies (abolition didn’t come until 1848) and they had considerable ambitions in Latin America. Decades later they would conquer Mexico and try to establish a satellite empire there, and in 1838 they already were nibbling around the fringes of the country...

One of the French admiral’s aides visited Galveston and Houston a few months later and wrote a report, quoted by Lagarde, that seems to have been a model of the genre: “Mexico would never win Texas back as the ‘Anglo-Saxon race’ was obviously superior to the ‘degenerate’ Spanish race. Slavery was unavoidable, as the profit was high, and if France were to establish ‘very advantageous commercial relationships’ with Texas, it would have to allow slavery.”

At about the same time, Lagarde tells us, the French embassy in Washington sent a young, ambitious and rather unscrupulous junior diplomat, Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, to check out the new republic. It took him three months to get there from D.C., he spent about the same amount of time traveling to some parts of Texas, lied about traveling to others, and wrote a glowing report in which he opined that the Mexican race was doomed to “disappear before the onrush of modern civilization pioneered by the Texians,” that annexation by the United States “would never take place,” and that the Indian threat was “negligible.”

Thus France should recognize the Republic of Texas to take advantage, in de Saligny’s words, of “the opportunity open to us to establish our influence over a portion of this continent, and to open important outlets for our industry and navigation.”
De Saligny then went back to Paris, where he worked with the Texas envoy there on the Treaty of Amity, Navigation and Commerce signed in October 1839. According to Lagarde, there may have been a little sweetener involved: a $50,000 bribe to the French authorities.

But the hoped-for influence and commerce between France and Texas never did materialize. Internationally, the Anglo-Saxon Texans preferred the Anglo-Saxon English, and, close at hand, yes, they did want to be annexed by the United States, and finally they were—provoking the 1846-1848 war in which the U.S. won California as well.

De Saligny, meanwhile, seems to have let his easily caricatured French arrogance get the better of him...paying his bills with counterfeit currency...sending a flunky to kill the pigs (with pistols and a pitchfork) of one of the men to whom he owed cash. When the man with the pigs grabbed de Saligny by the throat and shook him, de Saligny, indignant, wrote, “In view of such facts, Sir, I should be tempted to believe myself in the midst of a savage tribe, rather than in the bosom of a civilized and friendly nation.”

As Lagarde tells us, despite efforts to persuade the French to come to beautiful Texas, few did...A few of the French who did come left a mark. One Parisian designed the first state capitol building in Austin, but Lagarde concludes on a note that suggests just how difficult life was for most of those who put their faith in the vaunted promise of an independent Texas. He quotes a report in the Houston Telegraph and Texas Register written in 1843 from the settlement at Victoria, about 120 miles southeast of San Antonio:

“The few French Families that settled near this town have suffered many privations. … They expected to find a paradise in Texas, where they would obtain the comforts and even the luxuries of life with little labor, and of course they were disappointed. Several of them became insane, probably from discouragement and the suffering they were enduring. One of them, an old lady, while insane paddled across the Guadeloupe [River] on a log, and as soon as she got upon the opposite bank, she commenced dancing and singing in high glee, supposing she was out of Texas. She had previously been exceedingly melancholy.”

Interesting times in the USA, but I do fear any seriouse secession moves would ultimately be met with force by the federal government, they have to much invested in the staus quo to allow it to happen. Lawfully speaking Texas does have the right to implement this, but taking that first step would be monumental.

[NorthernRaider]

Soooooo having millions of Brits move to places like India, Somalia ,Kenya, South Africa etc in the 1800s and overwhelm the local cultures and practices it is Colonialism, Racist, Oppressive and Imperialist, but when millions of Indians, Somalis, Kenyans, South Africans etc move to the UK its diversity, multi culturalism and diversity and is good !!!! So how does that work then?
I also note that in the media today that apparently it is racist and xenophobic for white British people to want to protect their heritage and cultural roots and identity, But when its Black or Asian people retaining their dress, culture, habits, customs etc they are seen as celebrating their cultural identity........ even if it displaces the indigenous culture?

[Lightspeed]

good points. Well said

[MaryN]

Whichever way the vote goes, there are going to be a lot of people who will range from mildly indifferent to steaming angry. It is not going to end well. No matter what spin our beloved PM puts on it, the country is split on EU membership and it is not going to go back to the way it was. I was rather amused by the reactions to the election in Austria. How could anyone say that a less than 1% point of the vote counted as a "victory". It means that one half of the country is severely ticked off. Not good.

[NorthernRaider]

We fought two world wars to retain our FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY and the right to SELF DETERMINATION. Then we fought a long COLD WAR for 70 years to stop us being governed by un-elected, undemocratic, burocratic socialists and totalitarians, The EU is just a new version of the USSR using lawyers and burocrats instead of tanks and guns. If we stay in we may as well not have fought from Talavera, Waterloo, WW1, WW2 or the Cold War because the REMAINS are giving away everything we fought for. VOTE LEAVE

[CharlesHarris]

If Britain stays in the EU, I can foresee many of the disgruntled emmigrating to Canada, Australia or the US. I would much rather see Brit expats moving here than the others Obummer is encouraging.

Come to America, get a Green Card, buy a gun legally, come to West Virginia and carry it legally in your pocket. Buy a house out in the country where you can shoot deer eating vegtables in your garden. Enjoy bluegrass and Celtic music and play your bagpipes. Open a pub, we could use a real one around here.

[Lightspeed]

Lots of noise and debate, but probably little solid action will result...To stir us Brits to real action requires BOTH a war that threatens to spread to our shores, AND a charismatic non-politically-correct leader of the country. Its more than 70 years since we saw either.

Charles, your expectation is logical, but the temperament of the average Brit is so stoic that even if the referendum goes in favour of staying in, very few will be sufficiently motivated to pack their bags and leave.

Of course some will walk the walk ( literally) but they will be few in number and will probably already be well advanced in their planning to do so. Also, being British, we are expected by the world to be the receiver of refugees, and our nationalality does not bestow upon us refugee status. So to pack bags and head for Canada or Australia ain't so easy as it seems....those countries do not automatically allow us residence.

[NorthernRaider]

Immigration
Labour said we invited skilled workers from the middle east (over 2 million UNSKILLED arrived) Labour said only 14000 Poles would come (1.3 million later) Tories said few Roma will come to the UK (35,000 in a few months later) Tories said "We will get migration down to TENS of thousands" ( It ROSE to over 350,000 last year)............ The Media reports NOW we need 3.2 million new homes........ British families waiting DECADES for council houses......Children facing class sizes of over 40............... 500 new schools urgently needed.... No working class couple can afford to buy a house now.....Social cohesion is breaking down as migrants refuse to integrate....... White Flight continues from our cities, Reports of migrant crime against females rises rapidly..... Reports that up to another 5 million Middle eastern and North African migrants want to come to the UK..... GOp waiting lists grow as more migrants arrive............... VOTE LEAVE before the UK Capsizes,

[Barneyboy]

Does anyone think that the decision to stay in the eu has already been made for us ,sadly,I can't see the powers that be giving plebs like us the vote ,a fix comes to mind ,I bet the so called vote will be close but the ins will have it .
There's far to Much money involved,and back handers .