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Jeff Sessions and Hillary Clinton React to Brexit

June 24, 2016

Jeff Sessions and Hillary Clinton React to Brexit, Power Line, John Hinderaker, June 24, 2016

Senator Jeff Sessions released a statement on yesterday’s Brexit vote. As usual, Sessions has his finger on the pulse:

[The people’s] strong vote arose not out of fear and pique but out of love for country and pride of place. Their experience with a distant government in Brussels was given a long and fair chance to succeed. In the end, however, they concluded that the costs outweighed the benefits. …

Now it’s our time. The period of the nation state has not ended. No far off global government or union can command the loyalty of a people like their own country. Vague unions have no ability to call on the people to sacrifice for the common good. They seem incapable of making decisions and when they do, they have difficulty executing the decision.
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In negotiations and relationships, national leaders should first ensure they have protected the safety and legitimate interests of their own people. This principle has been eroded and Brexit is a warning for America. Our British friends have sent the message loud and clear.

The interests of powerful international corporations, media, special interests, and leftist international forces are not coterminous with those of our people. This we must understand. The ultimate interest that our government is legally and morally bound to serve is that of our people.

Just as in the U.K., our November presidential election presents a stark contrast. The establishment forces, the global powers, are promoting their values and their interests. They want to erode borders, rapidly open America’s markets to foreign produced goods, while having little interest in advancing America’s ability to sell abroad. These forces have zero interest in better job opportunities and higher wages for our citizens.

It has been known for years that the European Union has often served as a barrier to its members taking action that would serve their own interests. Perhaps nothing proves this more definitively than the current migrant crisis, where the EU has clearly been part of the problem, not the solution.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, had this to say:

Hillary Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said on a conference call Friday that Clinton “doesn’t believe Americans are isolationist” and that the results of Britain’s Brexit vote will not affect the outcome of the American presidential election.

Huh? What does standing up for British sovereignty have to do with being isolationist? If you don’t want to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats, you’re an isolationist? If you don’t want your country’s borders to be dissolved by unlimited immigration, you’re an isolationist?

As is so often the case, it is hard to tell whether Hillary is clueless or disingenuous. Or both.

Categories: 2016 elections, BREXIT, Britain, European Union, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Sessions
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, European Union, Jeff Sessions

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Neocons Endorse Hillary as the US Party of Empire Is Finally Revealed

June 24, 2016

Neocons Endorse Hillary as the US Party of Empire Is Finally Revealed, The Daily Bell, June 24, 2016

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Kagan and Hillary are actually agents of empire. They are facilitators of globalism and will use the military apparatus of the US to advance their goals.

The quarrel Kagan and others really have with The Donald is that he has stated his discomfort with Kagan’s style of empire building.

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Exclusive: Prominent GOP Neoconservative to Fundraise for Hillary Clinton A prominent neoconservative intellectual and early promoter of the Iraq War is headlining an official campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton next month, Foreign Policy has learned. -FP

The husband of State Dept. political agitator Victoria Nuland is raising money for Hillary.

According to Foreign Policy, Robert Kagan, co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, is going to speak at Hillary’s fundraiser in DC’s Logan Circle neighborhood, July 21.

Foreign Policy states that this marks a shift in the Clinton campaign because it seems she is now willing to associate with high level Republicans who are determined to ruin Trump’s chances of becoming president.

Mr. Kagan and Victoria Nuland sit near the heart of a certain kind of global authoritarianism that will use any tool to sustain itself and expand its presence.

Nuland was a central figure in the forceful political transition in Ukraine. As co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, Kagan helped orchestrate the US response to 9/11. Some might think he actually had a hand in 9/11, though there has never been any evidence offered that he had.

No doubt his vision helped supporte the advent of Homeland Security and other bureaucratic and intelligence entities that have fundamentally changed the way the US operates, and not for the better.

More:

According to an invite obtained by FP, the “event will include an off-the-record conversation on America’s continued investment in NATO, key European allies and partners, and the EU.”

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Kagan told the New York Times in 2014. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Basically, Kagan is calling Hillary a fellow neocon, at least when it comes to foreign policy.

But Kagan’s solidarity with Hillary doesn’t extend to Obama whom he has criticized, according to the article, for not being more forceful in Syria or more confrontational with Russia.

Kagan wants more defense spending and in a New Republic Cover story entitled “Super Powers Don’t Get to Retire,” he supported an aggressive, global U.S. diplomatic and military presence.

His views are much different than Trump’s, though supposedly they belong to the same party.

What we have here is a situation where the Democratic nominee is a good deal more attuned to an important Republican than the putative GOP presidential candidate.

The problem here is really one of labels. Kagan and Hillary are actually agents of empire. They are facilitators of globalism and will use the military apparatus of the US to advance their goals.

The quarrel Kagan and others really have with The Donald is that he has stated his discomfort with Kagan’s style of empire building.

Ironically, as Hillary shares Kagan’s point of view, the two have more in common with each other than Kagan has with Trump.

This is the real schism of American politics. And because of Trump, it cannot be papered over anymore.

Trump has certainly been a polarizing influence. One could even say he has forced truthfulness onto the political scene.

The real political struggle in the US remains between empire and small-r republicanism.

The party system itself is an inchoate mess. The most powerful political party, the Party of Empire embodied by Kagan, is hidden inside both parties without a name.

Conclusion: It is the Party of Empire that has been in charge in the US since World War II. And this nameless party sees Trump as a threat. He has so polarized the electoral process that real alliances have now had to emerge. They are much different than what one might expect.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Empire building, Hillary Clinton, Neoconservatives
Tags: Donald Trump, Empire building, Neoconservatives

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How Brexit will Change America and the World

June 24, 2016

How Brexit will Change America and the World, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 24, 2016

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During Obama’s first year in office, Count Von Rompuy grandly declared that “2009 is also the first year of global governance.” Like many such predictions, it proved to be dangerously wrong. And now it may just well be that 2016 will be the first year of the decline and fall of global governance.

The power of the establishment is illusory. Like the naked emperor, it depends on no one challenging it. The harder it is challenged, the harder it will fall. Brexit was an impossible dream. Then it was reality.

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Yesterday the British people stood up for their freedom. Today the world is a different place.

Celebrities and politicians swarmed television studios to plead with voters to stay in the EU. Anyone who wanted to leave was a fascist. Economists warned of total collapse if Britain left the European Union. Alarmist broadcasts threatened that every family would lose thousands of pounds a year if Brexit won.

Even Obama came out to warn Brits of the economic consequences of leaving behind the EU.

Every propaganda gimmick was rolled out. Brexit was dismissed, mocked and ridiculed. It was for lunatics and madmen. Anyone who voted to leave the benevolent bosom of the European Union was an ignorant xenophobe who had no place in the modern world. And that turned out to be most of Britain.

While Londonistan, that post-British city of high financial stakes and low Muslim mobs, voted by a landslide to remain, a decisive majority of the English voted to wave goodbye to the EU. 67% of Tower Hamlets, the Islamic stronghold, voted to stay in the EU. But to no avail. The will of the people prevailed.

And the people did not want migrant rape mobs in their streets and Muslim massacres in their pubs. They were tired of Afghani migrants living in posh homes with their four wives while they worked hard and sick of seeing their daughters passed around by “Asian” cabbies from Pakistan in ways utterly indistinguishable from the ISIS slave trade while the police looked the other way so as not to appear racist. And, most of all, they were sick of the entire Eurocratic establishment that let it all happen.

British voters chose freedom. They decided to reclaim their destiny and their nation from the likes of Count Herman Von Rompuy, the former President of the European Council, selected at an “informal” meeting who has opposed direct elections for his job and insisted that, “the word of the future is union.”

When Nigel Farage of UKIP told Count Von Rompuy that “I can speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying that we don’t know you, we don’t want you and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better,” he was fined for it by the Bureau of the European Parliament after refusing to apologize. But now it’s Farage and the Independence Party who have had the last laugh.

The majority of British people didn’t want Count Von Rompuy and his million-dollar pension, or Donald Tusk, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and the rest of the monkeys squatting on Britain’s back.

Count Von Rompuy has lost his British provinces. And the British people have their nation back.

The word of the future isn’t “union.” It’s “freedom.” A process has begun that will not end in Britain. It will spread around the world liberating nations from multinational institutions.

During Obama’s first year in office, Count Von Rompuy grandly declared that “2009 is also the first year of global governance.” Like many such predictions, it proved to be dangerously wrong. And now it may just well be that 2016 will be the first year of the decline and fall of global governance.

An anti-establishment wind is blowing through the creaky house of global government. The peoples of the free world have seen how the choking mass of multilateral institutions failed them economically and politically. Global government is an expensive and totalitarian proposition that silences free speech and funnels rapists from Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan to the streets of European cities and American towns. It’s a boon for professional consultants, certain financial insiders and politicians who can hop around unelected offices and retire with vast unearned pensions while their constituents are told to work another decade. But global government is misery and malaise for everyone else.

The campaign to stay in the EU relied on fear and alarmism, on claims of bigotry and disdain for the working class voters who fought and won the right to decide their own destiny. But the campaign for independence asked Britons to believe in their own potential when unchained from the Eurocratic bureaucracy. And now Brexit will become a model for liberation campaigns across Europe.

And it will not end there.

Brexit showed that it is possible for a great nation to defy its leaders and its establishment thinkers to throw off its multinational chains. And while the European Union is one of the biggest prisons forged by global government, it is far from the only one. America and Britain are sleeping giants covered in the cold iron links of multinational organizations that limit their strength and their potential.

It is time to break those chains.

Americans who want to cut their ties with the United Nations have found Brexit inspiring. Leaving the UK was once also seen as a ridiculous idea at the margins that could never be taken seriously. Serious politicians refused to listen to it. Serious thinkers refused to discuss it. And then it gathered speed.

There is growing opposition even among Democrats to treaties like the TPP. Trump has challenged NAFTA. Americans across the political spectrum are suspicious of economic treaties and organizations. Support for Brexit came from Labour areas in the UK. Support for Trump’s challenge to multinational treaties and alliances could very well come from unexpected places, like Bernie Sanders backers.

Brexit has shown us the weakness of the multinational establishment. Its vast bureaucratic power rests on using the media to suppress political dissent. When the media’s special pleading fails to stop the democratic process, it is more helpless than any dictator when the outraged mob pours into his palace.

What was true of Britain, is also true of America. Our elites are just as impotent. The power they have illegally seized is defended zealously by a media palace guard that spends every minute of every day lecturing, hectoring and messaging Americans. But when no one listens to the media, then the men and women who run our lives, who feed off us like a colony of parasitic insects, are helpless.

Their power is purely persuasive. When we stop listening, then we are free.

That is the lesson of Brexit. It is the future.

The future is not a vast behemoth of global government that swallows up nations and individuals, that reduces democratic elections to a joke and eliminates freedom of speech, but the individual. The elites have gambled everything on big government, big media and big data. But all of those lost to Brexit.

They lost to Brexit in the UK. They can lose in the US too. And they will lose.

The power of the establishment is illusory. Like the naked emperor, it depends on no one challenging it. The harder it is challenged, the harder it will fall. Brexit was an impossible dream. Then it was reality.

Our impossible dreams, the policies that conservatives are told by the establishment are not even worth talking about, can be just as real as Brexit.

If we are willing to fight for them.

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, Establishment, Globalists, Islamic invasion, U.S. politics
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Establishment, Globalists, Islamic invasion, U.S. politics

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Populist Anger Upends Politics on Both Sides of the Atlantic

June 24, 2016

Populist Anger Upends Politics on Both Sides of the Atlantic, New York Times, Jim Yardley, June 24, 2016

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Outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Friday. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Time and again, the European Union has navigated political crises during the past decade with a Whac-a-Mole response that has maintained the status quo and the bloc’s lumbering forward momentum toward greater integration — without directly confronting the roiling public discontent beneath the surface.

“There is a very widespread rejection of politics everywhere. There is a similar mood in the United States, an antipolitical sentiment.”

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LONDON — From Brussels to Berlin to Washington, leaders of the Western democratic world awoke Friday morning to a blunt, once-unthinkable rebuke delivered by the flinty citizens of a small island nation in the North Atlantic. Populist anger against the established political order had finally boiled over.

The British had rebelled.

Their stunning vote to leave the European Union presents a political, economic and existential crisis for a bloc already reeling from entrenched problems. But the thumb-in-your-eye message is hardly limited to Britain. The same yawning gap between the elite and mass opinion is fueling a populist backlash in Austria, France, Germany and elsewhere on the Continent — as well as in the United States.

The symbolism of trans-Atlantic insurrection was rich on Friday: Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and embodiment of American fury, happened to be visiting Britain.

“Basically, they took back their country,” Mr. Trump said Friday morning from Scotland, where he was promoting his golf courses. “That’s a good thing.”

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Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for president, arriving at his Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland on Friday. Credit Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Asked where public anger was greatest, Mr. Trump said: “U.K. U.S. There’s plenty of other places. This will not be the last.”

Even as the European Union began to grapple with a new and potentially destabilizing period of political uncertainty, the British vote also will inevitably be seized upon as further evidence of deepening public unease with the global economic order. Globalization and economic liberalization have produced winners and losers — and the big “Leave” vote in economically stagnant regions of Britain suggests that many of those who have lost out are fed up.

Time and again, the European Union has navigated political crises during the past decade with a Whac-a-Mole response that has maintained the status quo and the bloc’s lumbering forward momentum toward greater integration — without directly confronting the roiling public discontent beneath the surface.

But now the question is whether the dam has broken: Before breakfast on Friday, anti-Europe leaders in France and the Netherlands were rejoicing and demanding similar referendums on European Union membership.

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Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, at the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels on Friday. Credit John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Victory for liberty!” declared the far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, writing on Twitter, who changed her profile picture to an image of the Union Jack.

It is not clear whether the message is getting through to more establishment leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, or what lessons they are taking from the shock of the British exit.

Perhaps the liberal Democrats in the House who staged a clamorous sit-in Wednesday night in Washington, while part of the system themselves, were channeling the populist anger of the American left in their willingness to break the rules to make a point about the need for gun control. In Brussels, many member governments appear divided between an instinct to respond to the British referendum vote by driving for greater integration among Germany, France and other core members of the bloc and a willingness to moderate their ambitions in recognition of public opposition.

European leaders were under pressure to reassure the European public, and the world, that the bloc was not at risk of unraveling. For decades, the European Union had moved forward, always expanding in size and influence. Britain has now reversed that trend.

“We’re completely in uncharted territory,” said Hans Kundnani, a Berlin-based expert in European politics at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Kundnani said the British vote exposed a contradiction at the core of the European project. European leaders define success as steering member states toward greater political and economic integration. And many of the bloc’s inefficiencies and dysfunctions can be traced to the unfinished work of strengthening European institutions and achieving greater integration between member states in areas such as banking, finance, security and defense.

But public opinion is deeply skeptical of this “more Europe” agenda. Far-right populist leaders have stoked public anxieties and resurgent nationalism by lashing out against immigrants, while portraying the European capital, Brussels, as a bastion of political elites out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. Far-left populists have demanded a re-examination of the neoliberal economics of free trade and limited regulation, while resisting efforts to deconstruct the social democratic welfare state.

“The E.U. robs us of our money, our identity, our democracy, our sovereignty,” said Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom. “The elites want more E.U. They think they know better than the people. They look down on the people and want to decide in their place. They want us to be ruled by undemocratic, unaccountable bureaucrats in a faraway place like Brussels.”

And permeating everything is the weak Continental economy and the crippling debt burden across Southern Europe.

“The E.U. is kind of trapped,” Mr. Kundnani said. “On the one hand, the instinct will be to move ahead with further integration and reassure the rest of the world that the European Union is not unraveling. But that is very difficult because of the fault lines that exist.”

He added: “They are trapped because moving ahead is very difficult. Moving backwards is the last thing they want to do. And the status quo is unsustainable.”

Britain has always been a skeptical member of the European household. During the 1990s, Britain chose to keep the pound and not to join the countries sharing a common European currency, the euro. Many of the British concerns about the euro proved true, undermining the bloc’s credibility, even as Britain has remained mostly insulated against the Continent’s still unresolved euro crisis.

Before the referendum, some European officials portrayed Britain as an idiosyncratic case that should not be seen as a bellwether for the Continent. But that is a hard argument to make. In France, Ms. Le Pen’s far-right National Front party is experiencing steadily rising popularity as the country prepares for national elections next year. In Germany, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany polled strongly in recent state elections.

Right-wing leaders in Hungary and Poland are hostile to immigrants, while critics say the governments of those countries are also rewriting national laws to undermine democratic checks and balances. In Italy, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement scored major victories last Sunday by winning mayoral elections in Turin and, more important, in the capital, Rome.

Donald Tusk, one of the European Union’s top leaders, has started to talk about the risks facing the political establishment. At a speech last month before Europe’s coalition of center-right political parties, Mr. Tusk cautioned his fellow political elites.

“Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our euro-enthusiasm,” said Mr. Tusk, the president of the European Council, which comprises the heads of state of all the 28 member states in the bloc. “Disillusioned with great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now.”

Yet taking action may be difficult, since most analysts say the European Union is paralyzed by the coming national elections in 2017 in France and Germany, the two most powerful countries in the bloc. Neither the French nor the German government is eager to endorse sweeping initiatives for more European integration before the elections out of fear of a populist whipping at the polls.

“Europe is very divided and the main European country, Germany, has no will or skills to lead the union — and is approaching important national elections,” said Lucio Caracciolo, the editor of the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes. “France is a country in crisis, while Italy has its own problems. I can’t see who would assume a European leadership capable of producing a deeper integration process.”

He added: “There is a very widespread rejection of politics everywhere. There is a similar mood in the United States, an antipolitical sentiment.”

Few industries in Britain are likely to be more directly hit than the financial services industry in London. Damon Hoff, a hedge fund manager, said that he had voted to stay in the European Union, but that he understood the sentiments of those who had voted to leave.

“Europeans don’t feel more prosperous,” he said. “Europeans don’t feel more empowered. And certainly the British don’t.”

He added: “You want to be part of something that continuously evolves. Does the European Union feel like it is evolving? No.”

Categories: 2016 elections, BREXIT, Britain, Donald Trump, Establishment, Europe, European Union, Islamic invasion, U.S. politics
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Donald Trump, Establishment, Europe, European Union, Islamic invasion, U.S. politics

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Germany’s Turkish-Muslim Integration Problem

June 24, 2016

Germany’s Turkish-Muslim Integration Problem, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, June 24, 2016

♦ Seven percent of respondents agreed that “violence is justified to spread Islam.” Although these numbers may seem innocuous, 7% of the three million Turks living in Germany amounts to 210,000 people who believe that jihad is an acceptable method to propagate Islam.

♦ The survey also found that labor migration is no longer the main reason why Turks immigrate to Germany: the most important reason is to marry a partner who lives there.

♦ A new statistical survey of Germany — Datenreport 2016: Social Report for the Federal Republic of Germany — shows that ethnic Turks are economically and educationally less successful than other immigrant groups, and that more than one-third (36%) of ethnic Turks live below the poverty line, compared to 25% of migrants from the Balkans and southwestern Europe.

♦ “In our large study we asked Muslims how strongly they feel discriminated against, and we searched for correlations to the development of a fundamentalist worldview. But there are none. Muslim hatred of non-Muslims is not a special phenomenon of Muslim immigration, but is actually worse in the countries of origin. Radicalization is not first produced here in Europe, rather it comes from the Muslim world.” — Ruud Koopmans, sociologist.

Nearly half of the three million ethnic Turks living in Germany believe it is more important to follow Islamic Sharia law than German law if the two are in conflict, according to a new study.

One-third of those surveyed also yearn for German society to “return” to the way it was during the time of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, in the Arabia of the early seventh century.

The survey — which involves Turks who have been living in Germany for many years, often decades — refutes claims by German authorities that Muslims are well integrated into German society.

The 22-page study, “Integration and Religion from the Viewpoint of Ethnic Turks in Germany” (Integration und Religion aus der Sicht von Türkeistämmigen in Deutschland), was produced by the Religion and Politics department of the University of Münster. Key findings include:

47% of respondents agreed with the statement that “following the tenets of my religion is more important to me than the laws of the land in which I live.” This view is held by 57% of first generation Turkish immigrants and 36% of second and third generation Turks. (The study defines first generation Turks as those who arrived in Germany as adults; second and third generation Turks are those who were born in Germany or who arrived in the country as children.)
32% of respondents agreed that “Muslims should strive to return to a societal order like that in the time of Mohammed.” This view is held by 36% of the first generation and 27% of the second and third generation.
50% of respondents agreed that “there is only one true religion.” This view is held by 54% of the first generation and 46% of the second and third generation.
36% of respondents agreed that “only Islam is able to solve the problems of our times.” This view is held by 40% of the first generation and 33% of the second and third generation.
20% of respondents agreed that “the threat which the West poses to Islam justifies violence.” This view is held by 25% of the first generation and 15% of the second and third generation.
7% of respondents agreed that “violence is justified to spread Islam.” This view is held by 7% of the first generation and 6% of the second and third generation. Although these numbers may seem innocuous, 7% of the three million Turks living in Germany amounts to 210,000 people who believe that jihad is an acceptable method to propagate Islam.
23% of respondents agreed that “Muslims should not shake the hand of a member of the opposite sex.” This view is held by 27% of the first generation and 18% of the second and third generation.
33% of respondents agreed that “Muslim women should wear a veil.” This view is held by 39% of the first generation and 27% of the second and third generation.
31% of female respondents said that they wear a veil in public. This includes 41% of the first generation and 21% of the second and third generation.
73% of respondents agreed that “books and movies that attack religion and offend the feelings of deeply religious people should be banned by law.”
83% of respondents agreed that “I get angry when Muslims are the first to be blamed whenever there is a terrorist attack.”
61% of respondents agreed that “Islam fits perfectly in the Western world.”
51% of respondents agreed that “as an ethnic Turk, I feel like a second class citizen.”
54% of respondents agreed that “regardless of how hard I try, I am not accepted as a member of German society.”

The study also found that Turks and native Germans hold radically different perceptions about Islam:

While 57% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with human rights, only 6% of Germans do.
While 56% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with tolerance, only 5% of Germans do.
While 65% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with peace, only 7% of Germans do.

Based on the answers provided, the authors of the survey concluded that 13% of respondents are “religious fundamentalists” (18% of the first generation and 9% of the second and third generation). Although these numbers may appear insignificant, 13% of the three million Turks in Germany amounts to nearly 400,000 Islamic fundamentalists, many of whom believe that violence is an acceptable means to spread Islam.

The survey’s findings mirror those of other studies, which show that Turkish migrants are poorly integrated into German society.

In 2012, the 103-page study, “German-Turkish Life and Values” (Deutsch-Türkische Lebens- und Wertewelten), found that only 15% of ethnic Turks living in Germany consider the country to be their home. Other key findings include:

Nearly half (46%) of Turks agreed with the statement, “I hope that in the future there will be more Muslims than Christians living in Germany”; more than half (55%) said that Germany should build more mosques.
72% of respondents said that Islam is the only true religion; 18% said that Jews are inferior to Muslims and 10% said that Christians are inferior.
63% of Turks between the ages of 15 and 29 said they approve of a Salafist campaign to distribute a Koran to every household in Germany; 36% said they would be willing to support the campaign financially.
95% of respondents said it is absolutely necessary for them to preserve their Turkish identity; 87% said they believe that Germans should make a greater effort to be considerate of Turkish customs and traditions.
62% of respondents said they would rather be around Turks than Germans; only 39% of Turks said that Germans were trustworthy.

The survey also found that labor migration is no longer the main reason why Turks immigrate to Germany: the most important reason is to marry a partner who lives there.

Meanwhile, a new statistical survey of Germany — Datenreport 2016: Social Report for the Federal Republic of Germany (Datenreport 2016: Sozial-bericht für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) — shows that ethnic Turks are economically and educationally less successful than other immigrant groups.

The report, produced by Germany’s official statistics agency, Destatis, in cooperation with several German think tanks, shows that more than one-third (36%) of ethnic Turks are living below the poverty line, compared to 25% of migrants from the Balkans and southwestern Europe (Spain and Portugal). The average income of ethnic Turkish households is €1,242 ($1,400) per month, compared to €1,486 ($1,700) for non-Turkish migrants and €1,730 ($1,950) for German households.

Only 5% of ethnic Turks earn more than 150% of the average German income, compared to 21% of migrants from Eastern Europe, 18% of those from southwestern Europe and 11% of those from the Balkans.

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An open-air market in the heavily-Turkish Kreuzberg district of Berlin. (Image source: The Berlin Project video screenshot)

The report also shows that Turks have a lower educational attainment than other migrant groups in Germany. Only 60% of ethnic Turks complete secondary school (Hauptschulabschluss), compared to 85% of migrants from Eastern Europe. Moreover, only 8% of ethnic Turks between the ages of 17 and 45 earn a Bachelor’s degree, compared to 30% of migrants in the same demographic from Eastern Europe. Education is a determinative factor for successful integration, according to the report.

German multiculturalists often blame the lack of Turkish integration on the Germans themselves. Writing for Die Welt, economist Thomas Straubhaar argues that most Germans view Turks as guests, not as fellow citizens, an attitude which discourages Turks from integrating:

“Ethnic Turks are essentially treated as guests — hence the controversy over whether their faith belongs to Germany or not. Their immigration is seen as temporary. Their contribution to German culture is seen in a negative light.

“Those who treat migrants as guests should not be surprised when they behave as such. Guests are not expected to have any emotional devotion to the host, nor does the host feel any obligation to show irrevocable loyalty to the guest.

“Guests will not be willing to put all their cards on the table of the host country and take full responsibility for successful integration. Guests assume that sooner or later they must return home again. In everything they do, they will always consider their guest status and be only halfheartedly engaged. This applies to investments in language, culture, friendships, social contacts and professional career.”

Others counter that those who act like strangers should not be surprised if they are treated as strangers. Sociologist Ruud Koopmans argues that one of the most determinative factors in successful integration involves the cultural gap between host and guest. The greater the distance, the greater the integration challenge.

In a recent interview with WirtschaftsWoche, Koopmans criticized multiculturalists who for normative reasons insist that culture and religion should not be factored into the debate on integration:

“In all European countries, Muslim immigrants lag behind all other immigrant groups in almost every aspect of integration. This applies to the labor market, but also to educational achievement, inter-ethnic contacts, i.e., contacts with the local population, and identification with the country of residence.

“Three decisive factors determine cultural distance: language skills, inter-ethnic contacts — especially those involving marriage — and values about the role of women. They all have something to do with religion. This of course applies especially for ideas about the role of women, which are derived directly from the Islamic religion. The greater the cultural distance between groups — especially when there are cultural taboos — the more complicated inter-ethnic marriages become. Such taboos make it virtually impossible for a Muslim, and especially Muslim women, to marry a non-Muslim. Statistics from various European countries show that less than ten percent of Muslim marriages are inter-ethnic.”

Detlef Pollack, the author of the University of Münster study cited above, blames the lack of Turkish integration on discrimination: “The message to the majority German population is that we should be more sensitive to the problems encountered by those of Turkish origin,” he told Deutsche Welle. “It is our view that the feeling of not being accepted is expressed in the vehement defense of Islam.”

Koopmans rejects the link between discrimination and radicalization:

“This is a common assertion. But it is wrong. In our large study we asked Muslims how strongly they feel discriminated against, and we searched for correlations to the development of a fundamentalist worldview. But there are none. Muslim hatred of non-Muslims is not a special phenomenon of Muslim immigration, but is actually worse in the countries of origin. Radicalization is not first produced here in Europe, rather it comes from the Muslim world.”

Categories: Germany, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic law, Multiculturalism, Turkish immigrants
Tags: Germany, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic law, Multiculturalism, Turkish immigrants

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Why I Renounced Islam, Allah, and Muhammad

June 24, 2016

Why I Renounced Islam, Allah, and Muhammad, Front Page Magazine, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, June 24, 2016

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I never thought I would have the courage to publicly announce that I have left Islam. I have been hesitating to openly declare this; according to many Muslim leaders, I am now an “infidel,” the worst thing I can possibly be in their eyes. I was mostly concerned about the repercussions and risks to my family and relatives. But, in the face of the horrors that have spread throughout the world, I have finally made the decision to write my life story in “The Muslim Renegade: A Memoir of Struggle, Defiance, Enlightenment, and Hope.”

A Muslim believes that the Qur’an contains the verbatim words of Allah and should be implemented without reservation, regardless of time and geographical location. The Islamic reward for killing an unbeliever or apostate, someone who departs from Islam and renounces Allah and Muhammad, is receiving the best place in heaven, according to some Islamic teachings. The penalty for renouncing Islam is execution, legally administered in Islamic societies by governments, Islamic courts, or some religious groups and individual Muslims who desire to fulfill their duty prescribed by God (Allah), Muhammad, and the Qur’an. These Islamic and Sharia laws did create some concerns, fear and caution in me to tell my story.

If you are born into, or become a follower of Islam, abandoning it is not an easy task. A Muslim is indoctrinated from the early childhood. I believe the indoctrination evolves and transforms into deep-seated fear about questioning, let alone rejecting, Allah, Islam, and Muhammad’s rules. Deciding to be free and independent, liberating oneself from being the slave of Islam, become inconceivable and out of question. Once one becomes the slave of Islam, it kills his/her courage and will to leave it. As was also mentioned, Islam and Muslim leaders also punish abandonment of Islam, Allah, and Muhammad with death.

I grew up in a religious family in Islamic societies until a few years ago. I was one of the few who genuinely read the whole Qur’an word by word. I read it several times, and attempted to follow the rules meticulously, line by line. I didn’t just see my religion as a title; I wanted to live it as a devout Muslim. To do that, I had to be a strict follower of Islamic rules. I was the “good” Muslim according to many imams I spoke with.

But who is this “good” Muslim, according to Islamic teaching? A good Muslim follows Allah’s verses word by word. You cannot cherry pick the rules that you like or that you want to apply in certain situations. You must follow every legal, social, and spiritual rule. Not just anyone can be a good Muslim; a good Muslim feels a deep-down belief that they have been “chosen.” Only you are on the right path, and everyone else from other religions, even other Muslims, is not on this sacred path that leads to salvation. A good Muslim must also be a follower of his imam or ayatollah in addition to Allah, Muhammad and the Qur’an. Socially and legally speaking, according to Allah’s words in the Qur’an, you must accept “Allah’s rules” that a man can marry more than one wife simultaneously without asking for their permission (as my father did), that the testimony of a woman is not equal to that of a man in the court of law, that women inherit much less than men (half of what their brothers inherit), that you can have as many temporary marriages as you want, that having slaves is not an issue, that you should not be a passive Muslim, but you should be a jihadist who is willing to impose Allah’s rules in any society by following three steps: telling those who are not following Islam the correct path, if they do not listen, warn them, and if they still defy, punish them (resort to violence). A good Muslim believes in the superstitions that the Qur’an details such as the “evil eye.” A good Muslim hides some of his/her true feelings, avoids having normal fun, and views other religions as incomplete since Allah states in the Qur’an that Islam is the last religion that completes all the deficiencies of other religions, and so on.

When I came to the United States a few years ago — before the Paris, Orlando, San Bernardino, London and other recent terrorist attacks — I attempted to raise awareness and warn about the inevitable terrorist attacks that were going to happen in the name of Islam. Islam can provide a powerful language and tool to commit some of the worst crimes against humanity, while simultaneously the perpetrators of those attacks feel blessed, privileged, rewarded, and on the winning side.

Unless we gain a better understanding of the nature of Islam, its transformation and reliance on Qur’anic verses, as well as its norms, values, principles, and ideology in the modern world, we will not be capable of addressing this threat. It will only to continue to increase in intensity and spread further than most can imagine.

I am not suggesting this based solely on an academic and epistemological view of world cultures, but on my first-hand experience of growing up, studying, and working in predominantly Muslim societies for most of my life. I was born in the Islamic Republic of Iran and grew up in both Arab and Persian cultures.

It is my opinion that those who try to convert people into Islam first begin with some appealing notions from Islam. Once you sign up to the religion (by pronouncing two sentences: Ash hadu an la ilaha ill Allah wa ash hadu anna Muhammadar Rasul Allah; “I declare there is no god but Allah and I declare that Muhammad is the Messenger”), then gradually the restrictions, discriminatory rules against women, etc. will slowly follow. Without the new convert noticing, he/she becomes the slave of the Islamic ideology as well as the imam. Your freedom will be taken, and a new world, new God (Allah), and new set of rules will be created for you. Once you submit to Islam, there is no way to return, because if you leave this ideology, you are an infidel, an apostate who deserves to be killed, according to Allah’s words in the Qur’an.

In my book I share my own experiences in part because I believe deeply that as people become more interconnected, the most dire challenge to the current world order—to Western democratic values, universal human rights, the rule of law, social justice, gender equality, civilized society and all of humanity—is not nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, or other military capabilities, but it is modern Islamic ideology. For how long will the mainstream media and politicians remain “politically correct” on this issue? My intent is to raise awareness of what is happening in the very shielded and silent corners of fundamental Islam. To me it is imperative that the American people be educated about extremist Islamists who view them with such intense hatred.

Is the Islamic ideology an ideology of peace as many Muslims and imams argue? There are some verses and ideas in the Qur’an (likely plagiarized from the ideas of Christianity and Judaism) that do promote positive things.

But the violent and discriminatory rules in the Qur’an overshadow any hint of peace.

Would you consider an ideology or a leader peaceful if that leader tells you one good thing, but, at the same time, tells you that you can kill in the name of this ideology (as stated by Allah in the Qur’an)? Will you follow someone who tells you one good thing, but then tells you that women should not be considered equal to men in the legal system?

The Islamic ideology, its harsh teachings, and impossible rules, created contradictions inside me. I began soul-searching, which led to my inner transformation and revolution. I was born as a slave into this ideology, and finally I had to be free to make my own life choice (when I was in Iran few years ago) to liberate myself from the chains of this ideology. Doing so, leaving everything I had been taught for more than two decades, was not an easy task.

If you are born into a Muslim family and live in a Muslim society, where Sharia and Islamic laws are being legally implemented by the system, it is heartbreaking and dangerous. The fear of violence and death has permeated my life from the moment I was born — up to this very moment. Despite the risks, I feel I must speak my truth. The chains and cruel threats of this ideology will haunt you wherever you are. Knowing that I would become a target, along with my family and friends, knowing that I would lose everything I ever held dear (including many of my family and friends), I could have given in to my fear. Instead, I decided not to. It was a decision I had no choice but to make.

Categories: Allah, Islam - leaving, Islam and human rights, Islamic hatred of others, Mohammad, Quran, Sharia law
Tags: Allah, Islam - leaving, Islam and human rights, Islam's hatred of others, Mohammad, Quran, Sharia law

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Trump Issues Statement On Brexit: “They Took Their Country Back, We Will Take America Back”

June 24, 2016

Trump Issues Statement On Brexit: “They Took Their Country Back, We Will Take America Back”

by Tyler Durden

Jun 24, 2016 6:00 AM

Source: Trump Issues Statement On Brexit: “They Took Their Country Back, We Will Take America Back” | Zero Hedge

After last night’s historic referendum which saw the UK vote to leave the European Union, US Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has both tweeted…

Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2016

… and released a statement on the event.

Issued moments ago on Trump’s Facebook page, Trump saw an opportunity to piggyback on the UK’s reformist momentum, saying its people have “Declared their independence from the European Union, and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy.” The statement goes on to say that a Trump administration would pledge to strengthen ties with Britain, and that come November, the American people would have the chance to re-declare their independence as well, while voting to reject today’s rule by global elites.

Statement Regarding British Referendum on E.U. Membership

The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples. They have declared their independence from the European Union, and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy. A Trump Administration pledges to strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain, deepening our bonds in commerce, culture and mutual defense. The whole world is more peaceful and stable when our two countries – and our two peoples – are united together, as they will be under a Trump Administration.

Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first. They will have the chance to reject today’s rule by the global elite, and to embrace real change that delivers a government of, by and for the people. I hope America is watching, it will soon be time to believe in America again

Incidentally, whether he realizes it or not, the biggest winner from last night’s historic event in the UK is precisely trump, who now can show that “yes, it can be done, and it has been done”…

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The rout of the globalists

June 24, 2016

The rout of the globalists, American Thinker, Patricia McCarthy, June 24, 2016

Brexit prevailed and our globalist elites are shocked! The rest of us are shocked that they are shocked. The elites of the globalist world are shocked by the candidacy of Donald Trump. What is wrong with this picture? It is a loud shout-out re: the willful blindness of those globalist elites…like Cameron, Obama, Kerry, etc. Obama threatened the Brits: if they voted for Brexit, they would “go to the end of the queue.” What a thug our misguided President is – and an ignorant one at that. The Brits just gave Obama the back of their hand.

None of the UK toffs, or the American lib elites thought this would happen. How fun to see them so discombobulated. But who on earth could believe the people of the Britain could possibly be happy with what has happened to their country? They have been overrun by immigrants from vastly different cultures who demand and get submission to their religious mandates.They are being out-populated by the birthrates of those immigrants. Entire neighborhoods are now governed by Sharia law. British citizens are daily victimized by the few but venal among those immigrants. And still, the elites of the world believed that the UK would vote to stay in the EU! Can there be any question about the cluelessness of our self-regarded betters?

People who have been taught to feel entitled want free stuff from the people who earn what they desire. Poor economies feel entitled to the perks that productive nations produce. Greece thought, once it became a member of the EU, that it could spend like Britain and now they are both broke and in debt, (Greek debt, $351b, UK debt $1.6 t) like the US (US debt, $19t). Obama has doubled our debt. American taxpayers are his ATM just like they were for the Clintons and will be again if Hillary is elected.

Cameron has come forward to resign. He backed the wrong horse. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Was this subterfuge? Did he really support the Remain camp? Will he be coddled into staying in office? London, wholly in the Remain camp, is like NY, SF, LA and DC; bubbles like the one Pauline Kael inhabited when she was so shocked that Nixon had won and she knew no one who had voted for him. Like NY, SF, LA and DC, it is the wealthy and powerful elites who are so, so willing to surrender their rights, their freedoms and their country’s sovereignty to be politically correct. Support the Islamists, trash the Christians; Orlando was about guns, not terrorism. Give us a break!

We have been sold down the river by members of some elite, juvenile fraternity of submission to nonsense. Radical Islamists submit themselves to an utterly, brutal, murderous unreformed “faith.” The Orlando shooter is a perfect example of what submission hath wrought. The dems who staged that silly sit-in about guns are a laughingstock to all Americans who actually pay attention to facts and reality.

The Left’s response to Orlando is an hysterical defense of Islam and an even more hysterical move to repeal the Second Amendment . Who are these people? If Brexit is not a wake-up call for Americans, then we are truly mind-numbed. Trump may be a jerk but he is not Hillary. She is America’s version of the UK elite, ready to sell us out for the deadly imposition of political correctness. Think before you vote. Our lives and the future of this once great nation depend upon who is elected in November.

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, Economy, Globalists, Islamic invasion, US politics
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Economy, Globalists, Islamic invasion, US politics

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Brexit Vote Has Huge Ramifications for U.S. Politics

June 24, 2016

Brexit Vote Has Huge Ramifications for U.S. Politics, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, June 23, 2016

(Amen! — DM)

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A bubble has broken, but it isn’t a stock bubble. It’s a human bubble consisting of elites who seek to govern in a manner not all that distant from Comrade Lenin, just hiding under a phony mask of bureaucratic democracy. They’ve taken a big body blow from the citizens of England. Churchill would be proud. Time for America to follow suit.

***********************

News flash: The revolt against elites is real in the UK and America and it’s only getting started. Maybe there will always be an England.

In a surprise, Leave won the Brexit referendum on whether to stay in the European Union by an equally surprising amount. British sovereignty won. David Cameron lost. Jeremy Corbyn lost. The EU lost. Bureaucrats lost. Angela Merkel lost. Barack Obama lost. Globalism lost. Authority figures almost everywhere lost. And, most of all, unlimited immigration lost.

So what happened to the vaunted British betting market that is almost invariably correct and was predicting by 80 percent a Remain victory? Or all those recent polls that were tilting Remain?

Answer: Those same elites had convinced each other they would win and therefore convinced the usual suspects—media, pollsters and, sadly, financial markets—that they were right. They were wrong. Watching them now on the BBC they still cannot comprehend what has happened. The peasants have revolted—oh no, oh no. There must be some mistake. Didn’t they get the memo? The sky would fall if they left the EU.

Earth to elites: Citizens of truly democratic countries don’t want unlimited immigration into their countries by people who couldn’t be less interested in democracy. They also don’t want to be governed by the rules and regulations of faceless bureaucrats whose not-so-hidden goals are power and riches for themselves and their friends. Simple, isn’t it?

This vote is of immense help to Donald Trump if he is smart enough to seize it properly and doesn’t bobble the ball. Many, probably most, Americans feel exactly the same as their brothers and sisters across the pond. They despise the same elites and want to save their country. Trump, now fortuitously in Scotland (I know—they voted Remain, but not in the numbers they were supposed to), should show his support. The UK is America’s closest ally. We should be the first to extend a hand, negotiate free trade, etc., and get her rolling again.

That most elite of presidents, Barack Obama, who opened his morally narcissistic mouth supporting the Remain side and warning the British people, as he is wont to do, that there would be “consequences” if they voted to leave the EU, is in no position to do anything, even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t.

Hillary Clinton is so elitist she practically defines the term. She was probably up all night figuring out what to do about the situation. I have a suggestion—move to Brussels.

Meanwhile, Trump should take up the gauntlet for the U.S. and the UK now. Why wait? Act like the president—we could use one. Donald has a natural ally in the leading Leave spokesperson conservative Boris Johnson. The two men are said to be similar and in many ways they are.

Long live the Anglosphere. Remember the Magna Carta and all that. This is a day truly to celebrate, even if stock markets are crashing around the world. They’ll come back. Look on it as a buying opportunity. A bubble has broken, but it isn’t a stock bubble. It’s a human bubble consisting of elites who seek to govern in a manner not all that distant from Comrade Lenin, just hiding under a phony mask of bureaucratic democracy. They’ve taken a big body blow from the citizens of England. Churchill would be proud. Time for America to follow suit.

But don’t get cocky. This is only one small victory—a non-blinding referendum—but make no mistake about it, still a victory after all. Just follow the instructions of Sir Winston and “never, never give up.” Yes, I know the quote is falsely attributed, but it’s good advice nevertheless.

ainston

Categories: 2016 elections, BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump

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Britain WILL leave the EU after referendum voters back Brexit

June 24, 2016

BREAKING NEWS: David Cameron QUITS as Prime Minister and the markets descend into turmoil after voters trigger a political earthquake by backing Brexit in historic referendum

By James Tapsfield, Political Editor For Mailonline and Tim Sculthorpe, Deputy Political Editor For Mailonline

Published: 15:59 EST, 23 June 2016 | Updated: 03:20 EST, 24 June 2016

Source: Britain WILL leave the EU after referendum voters back Brexit | Daily Mail Online

An emotional David Cameron has announced his resignation as Prime Minister after the historic EU referendum delivered clear backing for Brexit.

The Prime Minister said he accepted the verdict of the ‘great democratic exercise’ which saw the Leave campaign triumph after stacking up 52 per cent of the votes – despite massive support for Remain in Scotland and major cities including London.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney moved to reassure panicking markets this morning after the Pound nose-dived to its lowest level against the US dollar for 31 years, and the FTSE slumped by 8 per cent.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has already raised the prospect of a second independence referendum in Scotland within two years, potentially heralding the break-up of the UK.

Flanked by wife Samantha in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said he had been ‘proud’ to serve as PM for the past six years.

But he said it would not be right for him to be the ‘captain of the ship’ while the UK negotiated its exit from the EU.

David Cameron said he could not be the ‘captain of the ship’ while the UK negotiated its exit from the EU

David and Samantha Cameron comforted each other after he made his emotional statement outside the famous door of 10 Downing Street

Mr Cameron (left) said he accepted the verdict of the ‘great democratic exercise’ which saw the Leave campaign triumph. His wife Samantha appeared to be getting emotional as her husband announced that he would stand down in October

‘I held nothing back. I was absolutely clear about my belief that Britain is stronger, safer and better off inside the EU,’ he said.

‘And I made clear the referendum was about this and this alone – not the future of any single politician including myself.

‘But the British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction.’

Choking back tears, Mr Cameron – who led the Tories to a shock majority in the general election barely a year ago – said he would not depart immediately and would seek to calm the markets over the coming ‘weeks and months’.

But he said a new Prime Minister should be in place for the Conservative Party conference in October. Boris Johnson, who led the Brexit campaign, will be the overwhelming favourite to take over.

‘I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,’ he said.

‘This is not a decision I have taken lightly but I do believe it is in the national interest to have a period of stability and then the new leadership required.

‘There is no need for a precise timetable today but in my view we should aim to have a new Prime Minister in place by the start of the Conservative Party conference in October.’

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn watched on a screen as Mr Cameron announced his resignation in the wake of the EU referendum vote. He is also coming under intense pressure over his role in the botched Remain campaign

He added: ‘Delivering stability will be important. And I will continue in post as Prime Minister with my cabinet for the next three months.’

Mr Cameron said he had spoken to the Queen this morning to alert her to his decision. He also said he would not be triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – the formal mechanism for leaving the EU.

‘The negotiation with the EU will need to begin under a new Prime Minister and I think it is right this new Prime Minister takes the decision about when to trigger Article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the EU,’ Mr Cameron said.

‘The British people have made a choice that not only needs to be respected but those on the losing side of the argument, myself included, should help to make it work.

‘Britain is a special country, we have so many great advantages – a Parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate.

‘A great trading nation with our science and arts, our engineering and creativity, respected the world over.‘And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model of a multi racial, multi faith democracy where people can come and make a contribution and rise to the very highest their talent allows.’

Hundreds of media were packed into Downing Street to watch Mr Cameron deliver his resignation statement in the wake of the referendum

He went on: ‘Although leaving Europe was not the path I recommended, I am the first to praise our incredible strengths. I have said before Britain can survive outside the EU and indeed that we could find a way.

‘Now the decision has been made to leave, we need to find the best way. I will do everything I can to help.

‘I love this country, and I feel honoured to have served it and I will do everything I can in future to help this great country succeed.’

Moments after Mr Cameron finished speaking, Mr Carney made a televised statement from the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street urging calm.

He said it was ‘inevitable’ there would be a period of ‘uncertainty’ in the wake of the Brexit vote, and admitted it would take ‘some time’ for the UK to forge new arrangements with the EU and the rest of the world.

But the governor – who previously warned that Brexit was the biggest domestic risk to the economy – insisted the Bank and the Treasury had been doing ‘extensive emergency planning’.

‘We are well prepared for this,’ he said.

The bombshell announcement came after a night of high drama that included:

Sunderland voted by a massive 61 per cent to 39 per cent for Brexit – far higher than expected. In Swansea, where Remain had been forecast to win by 10 percentage points, Leave ended up by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
Among a slew of poor results, Remain also only won by 51 per cent to 49 per cent in Newcastle, less than many had anticipated.
The final outcome of the referendum was 51.9 per cent for Leave to 48.1 per cent, with the winning margin more than a million votes.
The news sent the Pound plunging against the US dollar, losing around 20 cents to hit its lowest level since 1985. The stock market is also expected to open down around 8 per cent.
The Bank of England has moved to reassure investors that it will take ‘all necessary steps’ to stabilise the economy
The Brexit victory came despite Mr Farage admitting seconds after polls closed that Remain looked to have ‘edged’ the referendum. Boris Johnson reportedly told a passenger on the Tube that his side had lost the referendum battle.
Final polls had also predicted a Remain victory by up to 54-46.
More than 80 Tory Brexit backers writing to David Cameron urging him to stay on in Downing Street whatever the outcome.

The direction of the battle started to become clear with a shock result in Sunderland which saw the Out camp win by 61 per cent to 39 per cent. Analysis before the referendum had suggested Leave could be on track to win if they were more than six percentage points ahead.

A surprise victory for Brexit in Swansea, where the pro-EU side had been expecting to romp home, signposted a disastrous showing for Remain across Wales. Areas like Carmarthenshire decisively turned their back on Brussels.

Newcastle was less clear cut for the pro-EU side than they had hoped, seeing them sneak home by just 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

Remain had some bright spots, with chunky wins in London, Scotland and Oxford. Wandsworth in particular piled in with a massive 77 per cent in favour of staying.

However, the big English cities and Scotland were not enough to offset the will of the rest of the country, and Leave passed the finishing post at 6am.

Speaking at a jubilant Leave.EU rally in central London, Mr Farage said June 23 would go down in history as ‘our independence day’.

In a remark that could prove controversial after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot dead last week, Mr Farage said the country was separating from the EU ‘without a single bullet being fired’ .

‘Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,’ he said.

‘This, if the predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.

‘We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we have fought against big politics, we have fought against lies, corruption and deceit.

Nigel Farage claims a historic win for the Leave Campaign, saying the vote is ‘a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people’

A Leave campaigner celebrates in London amid scenes of utter elation with a commanding lead and just a few areas left to declare

‘And today honesty, decency and belief in nation, I think now is going to win.

‘And we will have done it without having to fight, without a single bullet being fired, we’d have done it by damned hard work on the ground.’

Mr Farage praised Ukip donor Arron Banks along with Labour and Tory MPs and those of ‘no party’ who have taken part in the Leave campaign.

He went on: ‘And we’ll have done it not just for ourselves, we’ll have done it for the whole of Europe.

‘I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation states, trading together, being friends together, cooperating together, and let’s get rid of the flag, the anthem, Brussels, and all that has gone wrong.

‘Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day.’

Setting the stage for another independence referendum north of the border, Scottish First minister Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘Scotland has delivered a strong, unequivocal vote to remain in the EU, and I welcome that endorsement of our European status.

‘And while the overall result remains to be declared, the vote here makes clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part of the European Union.’

A discarded Vote Remain placard in Parliament Square as the country woke up to the news it has voted to leave the EU

The SNP leader added: ‘Scotland has contributed significantly to the Remain vote across the UK. That reflects the positive campaign the SNP fought, which highlighted the gains and benefits of our EU membership, and people across Scotland have responded to that positive message.

‘We await the final UK-wide result, but Scotland has spoken – and spoken decisively.’

Former first minister Alex Salmond said the ballot should take place within the next two years while negotiations were still ongoing about the UK’s exit, so that Scotland could break away from Britain before it left the bloc.

Former Europe minister and Labour MP Keith Vaz told the BBC the outcome was a ‘catastrophe’. ‘Frankly, in a thousand years I would never have believed that the British people would have voted this way,’ he said.

‘And they have done so and I think that they voted emotionally rather than looking at the facts.

‘It’ll be catastrophic for our country, for the rest of Europe and indeed the world.’

He added: ‘The issues of immigration are extremely important, if you look at the campaign I think that there needed to be a much stronger campaign to stay in.’

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said the Conservative Party was ‘utterly preoccupied with leadership infighting rather than the future of the country’, adding: ‘This letter cannot unsay what senior Tory politicians have been telling us for weeks – that the British people simply cannot trust David Cameron.’

The atmosphere at the Leave.EU campaign party in London is jubilant as voters in the early stages give them a larger lead than expected and they win key battlegrounds

More people enjoy the party at the Leave.EU base in Westminster where people look as though they are beginning to think they may even win the referendum vote

Lib Dem former Cabinet minister Sir Vince Cable said Mr Cameron’s authority would be ‘completely gone’ in the event of the Leave win.

He described holding the referendum as a ‘very bad call’ by the Prime Minister, who failed to understand what happens ‘when you just throw the cards in the air’.

But senior Tories rallied round in an effort to protect the PM. Cabinet minister Chris Grayling – a Brexit backer – said: ‘It would be an absolute nonsense if David Cameron felt, having given the country that choice, if they take the decision he couldn’t carry on the job. We are completely behind him staying, we want him to stay and that letter is a statement of commitment to his leadership.’

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s hard-right Front National, hailed the referendum result as a ‘victory for liberty’ on Twitter

Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb said he did not think the Prime Minister ‘could have done any more’ and it was ‘absolutely essential’ that he remains in No 10.

He said: ‘There isn’t anybody else around the Cabinet table or outside the Cabinet, for that matter, or in any of the other political parties who can give this country the kind of leadership skills and abilities that David Cameron can at this, what is going to be very challenging weeks and months for the country.’

He added: ‘I just think there is a disconnect with the white working class. We didn’t get our core messages across to them.

‘When we tried to explain to them just how important the European Single Market was to their jobs, their livelihoods, we didn’t quite land those messages successfully.

‘And I think that is one of the themes that is emerging this evening is that old industrial white working class areas clearly haven’t bought the message that we have tried hard to communicate.

‘In those areas which are strongly perhaps white working class there will be a strong vote for Out and that’s something as a Government we need to respond to.

‘Clearly, I think one of the features of this referendum are some of those social divisions and clearly as a Government, as a political class, all parties, we need to show that we’re responding to that.’

Nigel Farage looked somber as he conceded defeat at around 11pm, admitting that Remain may edge the victory, but he looked overjoyed after a series of results that were better than expected for the campaign at 12.30am

Remain campaigners celebrated as the result came in for Gibraltar which voted In overwhelmingly. But it was downhill after that as Out won key battlegrounds

On the counting floor in Sunderland, there are scenes of joy as the huge win is announced, which will send ripples of hope to their fellow Brexit voters across the country

Pro-Brexit former defence secretary Liam Fox called for a ‘period of calm’ and urged the Government not to invoke article 50 straight away while insisting Mr Cameron must stay on as PM.

Dr Fox told BBC News: ‘A lot of things were said in advance of this referendum that we might want to think about again and that (invoking article 50) is one of them.

‘I think that it doesn’t make any sense to trigger article 50 without having a period of reflection first, for the Cabinet to determine exactly what it is that we’re going to be seeking and in what timescale.

‘And then you have to also consider what is happening with the French elections and the German elections next year and the implications that that might have for them.

‘So a period of calm, a period of reflection, to let it all sink in and to work through what the actual technicalities are.’

Nigel Farage’s job as an MEP will cease to exist when we leave the EU, and he has repeatedly failed to win a seat in the House of Commons

Young Brexiteers react with jubilation to the EU referendum results at a party thrown by Leave.EU

Business Minister Anna Soubry said: ‘I will respect the result. It’s a dreadful decision. We have to make the best of it.’

Former cabinet minister Sir Eric Pickles said: ‘Very sad at the decision #EUref , but that is how democracy works, so we better get on with it.’

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he believed around two-thirds of Labour voters backed Remain.

‘A lot of Conservative voters have gone for out. There’s a solid base on the Tory party for out that have gone against their own Prime Minister,’ he told Sky News.

‘Within the Labour vote I think it looks as though two-thirds one-third split, might be less than that, we’ll see.’

Ex Labour leader Ed Miliband said a Remain majority would be ‘a vote for staying in the EU, but not a vote for the status quo in this country’.

‘Whatever happens, the country will need to come together, there will need to be healing,’ he said.

‘It’s a nation divided and the PM will have a big responsibility – particularly if it’s a Remain win – to show he understands what people are saying on the Leave side of the argument.

SNP Minister Humza Yousaf at the EU Referendum count for Glasgow (left) and volunteers at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London counting the ballot papers

As the result in Sunderland gives Brexit a huge win, Leave campaigners in London celebrate with utter jubilation at a victory so big it indicates in the early stages that they may have the edge

Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham speaks to a colleague as the EU referendum ballot vote count gets under way at the Manchester (left). Pictured, right, is a Remain campaigner in Glasgow

The mood among Remain campaigners looked more glum. This In supporter in Northern Ireland checks his mobile phone for early results which paint a grim picture for the overall result

‘Labour faces that responsibility too. As far as Labour voters are concerned, there are two issues. There is obviously immigration, but beneath that there is a whole set of issues about people’s lives and the fact that they don’t feel politics is listening to them.’

Ukip MEP Diane James said the large win for Leave in Sunderland could be down to anger over the local Nissan car plant writing to employees to make clear the company would prefer Britain to stay in the EU.

She told BBC News: ‘Nissan, I believe, was one of those companies that was effectively asked by the Prime Minister to write a letter to the employees and I think what you’re seeing here is the reaction to that, which I understand has been quite widespread across the country where people have actually taken offence at being directed to do something and then seemingly that whole message has been undermined in the later stage.’

The Bank of England said it would take ‘all necessary steps’ to ensure monetary and financial stability in the wake of the Brexit vote.

‘The Bank of England is monitoring developments closely,’ it said in a statement.

‘It has undertaken extensive contingency planning and is working closely with HM Treasury, other domestic authorities and overseas central banks. The Bank of England will take all necessary steps to meet its responsibilities for monetary and financial stability.’

But Standard & Poor’s said the Brexit decision was likely to see the country lose its AAA credit rating – potentially driving up the cost of government borrowing.

Chief ratings officer Moritz Kraemer told the Financial Times: ‘We think that a AAA-rating is untenable under the circumstances.’

The turnout in parts of Scotland were lower than the rest of the country, with Glasgow at 56.3%. In Glasgow 253,000 ballot papers were verified out of a total electorate of 449,806.

Moments after the polls closed at 10pm last night Mr Farage appeared to concede defeat.

‘It’s been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high and it looks like Remain will edge it,’ he said.

‘Ukip and I are going nowhere and the party will only continue to grow stronger in the future.’

The Leave campaign got off to a great start in Sunderland but the party didn’t start prematurely at the Leave.EU party in Westminster, where volunteers eagerly await the results

But when the Sunderland result came in, Leave campaigners jumped for joy, cheered and congratulated each other after a huge win

David Cameron’s close aide Liz Sugg attended a Stronger In referendum party at the Royal Festival Hall, where activists were wearing blue T-shirts and drinking from disposable cups

But speaking at a Leave.EU referendum night party later as results started to flow in, Mr Farage stressed he was not ruling out a Leave victory and ‘hoped and prayed’ his sense defeat was wrong.

‘The Eurosceptic genie is out of the bottle. And it will now not be put back,’ he said.

Highlighting the government’s controversial decision to extend voter registration deadline by two days to make up for the website going down for just a couple of hours, Mr Farage said: ‘My sense of this is the government’s registration scheme, getting two million voters on in the 48 hour extension maybe what tips the balance. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I am made a fool of.

‘But either way, whether I am right or wrong, if we do stay part of this union it is doomed, it is finished anyway.

‘If we fail tonight, it will not be us that kicks out the first brick from the wall but somebody else.’

He added: ‘We are running them close, they have been scared, they have behaved pretty appallingly.

‘Win or lose this battle tonight, we will win this war, we will get our country back, we will get our independence back and we will get our borders back.’

Early in the night Education Secretary Nicky Morgan was among senior Remain figures who voiced confidence they were on track for victory.

She told BBC News: ‘Obviously we’ve got a long night ahead of us. We are confident and hopeful that there will be a victory for the Remain campaign but we’ll obviously have to see.’

If there is a Remain victory the Government will go on seeking reform in the EU, she added.

‘I think if there’s been a clear win then that’s sending a message,’ Mrs Morgan said.

‘One of the things obviously is going to be implementing the reform deal the Prime Minister secured back in February.’

Labour’s Chuka Umunna said he still believed the outcome would be ‘close’. ‘If I was forced to call it I am reasonably confident that Remain gets a result.’

Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers, another supporter of Brexit, said her instinct was that Remain would win the vote.

But high-profile Leave campaigner Iain Duncan Smith cast doubt on Mr Farage’s suggestion that Remain is set for victory.

‘I never quite follow what Nigel Farage says,’ the former work and pensions secretary told the BBC. ‘Quite often he says two different things at the same time.

‘I genuinely do not have a sense of how this has gone.’

Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labour party, looks concerned as the votes are neck and neck in a tense referendum battle

A Vote Leave source stressed that no-one could know the results yet, and suggested Mr Farage had been ‘unhelpful’ throughout the campaign.

Lord Ashdown said the result was ‘too close to call’ and insisted he had learnt not to make predictions following his promise at the general election to eat his hat after declaring the exit polls were wrong.

He said: ‘Once bittten, twice shy. I suspect eat my hat has gone down into the political lexicon against my name forever.

‘I don’t think anybody can make a prediction, this is far too close. We are in the margin of error.’

The Liberal Democrat former leader added: ‘I think there has been a bit too much hyperbole. I’m not sure the political class has covered itself in glory in this and I suspect we have an electorate that is more confused than it needs to be.’

Brendan Chilton, general secretary of Labour Leave, said: ‘Nigel may have said that but until the votes are counted we don’t really know what’s happened.

‘It’s a bit concerning if that is the case. I obviously hope we have won.’

Mr Chilton said his gut feeling at 10pm was that Leave would ‘win, just’. He added: ‘Even if we don’t win, if it’s close, that is a magnificent achievement.’

Conservative former justice minister Damian Green said the result should ‘settle it for a generation’.

‘A win is a win so it should put an end to it,’ he added.

In Gibraltar, which is taking part in the referendum as a British overseas territory within the EU, turnout was a healthy 84 per cent.

But torrential rain and flooding in the South East caused transport disruption which may have prevented some voters from reaching the ballot box in time. Some polling stations were forced to close, and two in Kingston-upon-Thames had to be relocated after becoming inundated.

As the polls closed, more than 80 Brexit rebels in David Cameron’s Tory party sent a letter to Downing Street urging him to stay on as PM whatever the result.

With Mr Cameron’s Remain campaign appearing on course for victory in the referendum, the group led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove reached out an olive branch.

The intention of the letter – made public as soon as polls closed in the referendum – was to begin the process of healing wounds in the Tory Party.

Some 84 Tories signed the letter to tell Mr Cameron: ‘We believe whatever the British people decide you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our policies.’

As well as Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, the signatories included Cabinet-level Brexit backers Chris Grayling and John Whittingdale, but not Iain Duncan Smith, who quit as work and pensions secretary shortly before the referendum.

Tory MP Robert Syms said that two-thirds of Conservative MPs who broke with the PM to back Leave had signed the letter, but said it had not been possible to reach all of them to ask them to sign.

Mr Duncan Smith said he was not asked to sign the letter but insisted Mr Cameron should stay on as PM.

Mr Duncan Smith told BBC News: ‘Actually I wasn’t asked to sign the letter but I’ve been very public all along to say that I think he has a duty to stay.

‘I’m not in government any longer so I assume that’s why I wasn’t asked – I’m just a backbencher.’

Mr Farage’s early pessimism about the prospects for Brexit triggered a rise in the value of Sterling by almost a cent against the dollar as the markets breathed a sigh of relief.

Boris Johnson hijacked his own daughter’s graduation earlier today by unveiling a Brexit banner with just hours to go until polls close in the historic EU referendum

As his 22-year-old daughter Lara was enjoying her big day at St Andrews University in Fife, Scotland, the leading Vote Leave campaigner waved a poster with the words: ‘Last chance to vote’.

But one student defied the ex-London Mayor by marching up to collect her degree with a Remain poster of her own as voters went to the polls across the country.

Mr Johnson performed the stunt as he sat in the balcony of the Younger Hall alongside his wife Marina Wheeler QC, revealing the poster to the packed audience and causing mayhem as students then unveiled their own ‘Remain’ messages to the crowds.

Lara Johnson was awarded a degree in Latin and Comparative Literature from the Scottish university. Her dad flew up to Scotland for the occasion, posing for selfies with excited students after four months of hard-fought campaigning to persuade voters to back Britain leaving the EU.

Ali West said she could not pass up the opportunity to make the Remain case to Mr Johnson, insisting: ‘Boris Johnson was in the audience at my graduation today, so naturally I had some thoughts.’

Speaking this evening, the Leave champion said: ‘From what I have heard and all the information is that turnout is good in areas where we need it to be.’

Regional Counting Officer Sue Stanhope announces the turnout for Sunderland as 64.9 per cent and Leave emerge victorious with 61.3 per cent of the vote. It’s a good start for Brexit as experts said that a six per cent lead would suggest the vote would finish tied

The Former Mayor of London and Vote Leave Campaigner Boris Johnson on the tube on his way vote at his local polling station today. It’s a day on which he has spent plenty of time on the move, watching his daughter graduate from St Andrew’s in Scotland

Nigel Farage arrives at the Brexit party in Westminster and is pictured with his trademark pint of ale but looks less than happy as it looks like the Leave campaign is heading for defeat

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has shown a multitude of expressions throughout the evening. From hope (left), to shock (centre) and confusion (right), the evening will be a rollercoaster for the man who has campaigned on the issue for 25 years

DON’T GO DAVE! BREXIT REBELS URGE CAMERON TO STAY ON AS PM WHETHER HE WINS REFERENDUM OR NOT

More than 80 Brexit rebels in David Cameron’s Tory party tonight sent a letter to Downing Street urging him to stay on as PM.

With Mr Cameron’s Remain campaign appearing on course for victory in the referendum, the group led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove reached out an olive branch.

The intention of the letter – made public as soon as polls closed in the referendum – is to begin the process of healing wounds in the Tory Party.

Some 84 Tories signed the letter to tell Mr Cameron: ‘We believe whatever the British people decide you have both a mandate and a duty to continue leading the nation implementing our policies.’

As well as Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, the signatories included Cabinet-level Brexit backers Chris Grayling and John Whittingdale, but not Iain Duncan Smith, who quit as work and pensions secretary shortly before the referendum.

A volunteer in Manchester Central is seen yawning at the beginning of what is likely to be a long evening for all of those involved, with the official result not expected to be announced until after 7am

Pollsters have been left licking their wounds after following up on their abject failure to predict last year’s general election result by calling the referendum wrong.

Last night a flurry of eve-of-referendum polls suggested the result is still too close to call.

A YouGov poll for The Times gave Remain a lead of 51 to 49. FTI Consulting gave Remain the edge by 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent once ‘don’t knows’ are taken out.

YouGov chief Peter Kellner has admitted that the failure was ’embarrassing’.

Two further polls by Opinium and TNS showed the reverse, with Leave on 51 per cent and Remain on 49 per cent.

Opinium Research recorded a tiny lead for Brexit in its final survey of 3,000 voters this week as it found 45 per cent backed Leave and 44 per cent backed Remain.

But after taking into account the margin of error in the study, the firm declared it impossible to predict a winner.

A week ago, Opinium had the referendum tied at 44 per cent each while at the start of June the pollster had Remain ahead 43-41.

The poll fits with the mixed found by all of the polling firms in the last week of the race, with some results showing small leads for either side while other showed a tie.

By contrast, betting markets have continued to show Remain as the strong favourite as the race enters its final hours.

Adam Drummond, of Opinium Research said: ‘This really is ”too close to call” territory with undecided voters holding the balance of the vote in their hands.

‘Although referendum campaigns normally see a move back to the status quo as we get closer to polling day, this hasn’t yet shown up in our polls and the Remain camp will have to hope that it happens in the polling booth itself if Britain is to stay in the European Union.’

In its latest poll, Opinium interviewed 3,011 voters between Monday and Wednesday.

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