General Election UK, June 8th...

[Brian Peacock]

No, we have the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Isles as well!!

[Hermit]

No, we have the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Isles as well!!

You have a whole heap more than that.

Akrotiri and Dhekelia
Anguilla
Bermuda
British Antarctic Territory
British Indian Ocean
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Falkland Islands
Gibraltar
Montserrat
Pitcairn Islands
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Turks and Caicos Islands

They're known as the British Overseas Territories. Add them all up, that's a huge area. 1,727,570 km2, in fact. Once you take the Antarctic Dominion out that shrinks to 18,170 km2, though. Population doesn't amount to much either. Quarter million. Still, nobody lords it over as many penguins as the UK. Nobody, except for Australia, New Zealand and Norway.

[PsychoSerenity]

I'm not sure how Gibraltar will stay on that list once we leave the EU. I believe they had 96% vote for remain.

[Svartalf]

Question is do they want to remain in the EU enough to become a part of spain? because I don't see them becoming an independent city state and remaining in the Union without going through all the rigmarole of joining... We've already as much as promised said rigmarole to Scotland, I don't see size being a factor...

[Scot Dutchy]

And Gibraltar.

[mistermack]

The top brass in the EU are fully behind an unrestricted border in Ireland.
It's not a problem if the will is there.

Gibraltar will stay British. So long as there are apes on the rock.

[Scot Dutchy]

Where are the apes going to then?

[Brian Peacock]

The top brass in the EU are fully behind an unrestricted border in Ireland.
It's not a problem if the will is there.

Gibraltar will stay British. So long as there are apes on the rock.

Humans are apes too.

Gibraltar voted 95% remain - or, 80% of the electorate voted remain from a turnout of 83%. I think that was the highest turnout for any voting area. I'm not sure if the rock's ties to a British identity are strong enough to withstand that level of objection. We'll have to wait and see. Referendum voting data is available at The Electoral Commission website btw.

I dispute Mr May's claim of an absolute Conservative mandate to proceed with Brexit in any way her government sees fit. For one, none of the Leave campaigns talked about the nature or manner of withdraw, the level or scope for compromise or post-Brexit cooperation - so she cannot claim that Leavers voted for anything other than leaving, and given the cross-party nature of the campaigning certainly not for uniquely Tory vision of Britain's future. For two, 37.4% of the electorate voted Leave and 34.7% voted Remain, which hardly counts as an unequivical or ringing endorsement. Now I know that the voters who turn up to vote decide elections but this is a national, non-party issue now, one which effects everyone equally the result still show that 62.5% of the electorate did not vote for Leave. It doesn't just effect those eligible to vote either and if the referendum results are weighed towards the population as whole the 73.4% of the population didn't vote Leave.

Again, I'm not saying that Leave didn't accrue the majority of votes cast - I'm just saying that Britain didn't vote for Mrs May's or the Conservative party's (because she could be ousted before the next election) vision of a happy citizenry skipping gleefully to a Tory tune across post-Brexitean sunny uplands overflowing with milk and honey.

In fact, we still have no clear idea what that vision actually is even while Mr May is calling us all to unite behind her. As usual, Mr May is hawking the possibility of a better future without offering any firm declarations about how she intends to bring that about nor any firm commitment to actually succeeding. This election is an exercise is speculative opportunism - and it's not our opportunities the Tories are speculating on, but their own. Having said that, I don't expect her to lose.

[Scot Dutchy]

Just wait until she has to deal with Macron.

[Svartalf]

Mrs May is a Tory, she promises a better future for the humongously wealthy and other entitled classes, period, and I have little doubt she will deliver, if she has to turn the City into a tax haven on a scale Panama, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, and the Isle of Man can't even hope to equal.

[Svartalf]

Just wait until she has to deal with Macron.

Thick as thieves they will be, in the most literal meaning of the phrase.

[rainbow]

Gosh I'm so bored with this already.

Why don't the Brits just make May Ueberfuhrer, and let her get on with it?

[Svartalf]

Because the fish school (salmon and sturgeon) won't let her alone, and they don't want scotland to secede.

[Brian Peacock]

'The Fish School'

[pErvinalia]