Brexit Day

At 12 AM (midnight) CET tonight, January 31^st, 2020, the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.

In commemoration of this solemn occasion Bock MacMillan, the Much Honored Laird of Southern Charm, prince of Cascade Falls, etc, etc, has issued the following statement.

"A slim majority of Britons voted to leave the European Union in a referendum in 2016 (51,89%) and again in the general election 2019, which was to a great extent focused on the Brexit issue. The Conservative party (who supported Brexit), won 365 of the 650 seats in the Parliament, thus a very comfortable majority. 

In my opinion, it is a sad occasion which I believe the Brits will come to regret. To me, the EU has always mainly stood for a peace project. An effort to bring together "the usual suspects" (i.e. Germany, France United Kingdom, and Italy) and the smaller European countries to work on joint projects and solutions of common issues with the goal of peaceful coexistence in the longterm. 

It is unfortunate that the UK now leaves the community due to a resurgence of nationalism, populism, and isolationism. The question of whether the Brits have been misinformed or lead astray is now moot. We must accept the results of their will as it has been clearly expressed. 

I wish the Brits all the best for the future."

Still Shattered &Disillusioned

Following the American presidential election and Brexit referendum in Great Britain has now given me a sound skepticism towards opinion polls. I will never trust their results again,

Ever since I saw the final results in both these elections my thought wander off to somehow come up with as viable explanation - I am getting nowhere and then I just feel a great sadness.

I have to leave it behind or I will go crazy.

And the World Turns...

So... I'm utterly stunned today by the news I woke up to this morning, because I really could not imagine that a majority of the people of the United Kingdom would vote for leaving the European Union.

I have always had this vain belief that people in general are rational and will make conscious decisions that are in the best interest of their communities or - at least - in their own personal interest.

I read somewhere that the results of this referendum, caused a loss in British wealth during a few hours much exceeding what they have been paying to the EU since 1975 (not counting what they have received back from the EU). Edited 10:35PM SLT

The consequences of this referendum will cause us all much turmoil over the coming years, but especially for the Britons. The British pound is plummeting and the US dollar is soaring, which will among other things - and because this is a SecondLife blog - lead to SecondLife becoming more expensive for non-US nationals.

Thankfully the British Prime Minister David Cameron, who caused this mess by calling a referendum to try to curtail conflict within his own Conservative Party, has announced his resignation.

Landslide For Yes!

42 out of the 43 constituencies voted for accepting same-sex marriage in the Irish referendum today! Only the constituency of Roscommon-South Leitrim voted "No" with a little more than a thousand votes.

What a wonderful and marvelous day this has been! And for many European gay men the fun continues today with the finals of the European Song Contest.

However my heroes of the day are our straight allies in Ireland, this song is for you wonderful people!

Thank You, Our Irish Straight Allies!

As Rachel Maddow, the television host of the MSNBC has said: “Here’s the thing about rights – they’re not actually supposed to be voted on. That’s why there’re called rights.”

But in the case of Ireland there was a definition of marriage written into the constitution, so to have it changed there was a constitutional requirement to put it to a ballot of the Irish people.

And according to all analysts the outcome is already clear, based on among other things by the huge voter turnout and the fact that even usually conservative constituencies have voted Tá/Yes. The only question now seems to be if any of the 43 constituencies will return a Níl/No-vote.

You can follow the counting here Irish referendum - Results by constituency. From there you can click on the detailed listing on the upper left of the page.

An Irish Cabinet minister, Leo Varadkar, who came out as gay at the start of the government's campaign, said: "We're the first country in the world to enshrine marriage equality in our constitution and do so by popular mandate. That makes us a beacon, a light to the rest of the world of liberty and equality. It's a very proud day to be Irish."

I could not agree with him more and would like to thank all our wonderful, sexy, beautiful, amazing, wonderful, marvelous, awesome, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, wonderful  and down-right sexy straight-allies in Ireland! I love and adore you all! 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The Irish Referendum

Tomorrow Friday, May 22, the Irish electorate will take to the polls to vote on the Marriage Equality Referendum.

The electorate will be asked whether or not they approve of a Thirty-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which proposes to add a new clause to the Article 41 of the Irish Constitution. If the referendum is passed, Article 41.4 will be added and read as follows: "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex."

I had originally planned to write a rant about how cowardly the Irish politicians are to let a matter of human rights be decided by a referendum, how gay rights are human rights and how it is every human beings inalienable right to pursue happiness in the way they choose.

However when reading up for this post, I encountered several reports stating that any change to the Irish constitution must be put to a vote, so there will be no rant today, alas... (If I have misunderstood something in this regard, please don't hesitate to tell me so, I feel a strong urge and need to have a good rant to cleanse my system!)

Instead I feel encouraged by the polls that seem to show that a huge majority of the wonderful Irish people will vote for the amendment, even if the naysayers seem to be catching up slowly as the day of the referendum has gotten closer.

Please join me in keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for a win for "Yes" in tomorrows referendum.

The Scottish Referendum

Yesterday more than 3.6 million Scots turned out to answer the question: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’

The much honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm, prince of Cascade Falls, Sovereign Ruler of the Commonwealth of Southern Enchantment Region and Outer Territories and finally UN appointed Protector of the Solace Island and Mount Whitney sims in SecondLife, has monitored the referendum with much interest and some anxiety. Although the laird himself was not eligible to vote in the referendum, he has had much empathy for the trials and tribulations of his distant cousins in deciding this issue.

In the days before the referendum the all three of the largest parties in the United Kingdom visited Scotland and promised a greater devolution of powers to the Scottish parliament on issues of taxation, spending and welfare if the voters voted for ‘No’. 

The votes have now been tallied and the result of the referendum is shown in the graph below.

Graph quoted from guardian.com

The ‘No's won all except four of the 32 counties, the four ‘Yes’-counties being Dundee (57,3%), West Dunbartonshire (54,0%), Glasgow (53,5%) and North Lanarkshire (51,1%).

Following the result of the Scottish referendum the largest political parties have now also promised a greater devolution of powers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.