The UK General Election

results will affect us here in Downunder as well. 
I think I have said elsewhere in this blog that we have made a major mistake in trying to become "part of the Asian region". Downunder is not an Asian country. It never was and it never will be. 
We aren't European either - although we have now been part of that curious event known as Eurovision. We sit somewhere between the two I suppose - and on the rim of the Pacific Island nations. It isn't comfortable.
Asia does not want us. It is time we accepted that. Asian countries will do business with us. That makes sense. Asian countries will also tolerate us but we are, at best, "neighbours". We are not "family". We are seen as Westerners, even as European. For all our much lauded "multi-cultural" credentials we are not seen as Asian. When we come to terms with that then we might have a more settled place in the world. 
I am aware that this is not a popular view among those who spruik the multi-cultural message. They tell me, "Look at the X festival, the Y festival, and the Z festival. They are all Asian. You're wrong."
No, I am right. For all those things get reported in the media there are still only a minority of Downunderites who attend these things - and even fewer who truly understand what they are about.
Middle Cat married into the Greek-Cypriot community here. It is a community which still has annual events such as the Blessing of the Waters. It will probably be reported in the media. It usually is. My nephews here have never been although they were baptised Greek Orthodox. If I asked them they would struggle to tell me what it was about. They don't go to church. It is an event which, apart from the few genuinely faithful, is more about an excuse to get together among some and for politicians and the media to perpetuate the myth of multi-culturalism. Many other festive events come into the same category. What is being "celebrated" has little, if anything, to do with the actual meaning of the event in the country in which it originated. It is like the Japanese celebrating "Christmas". Very few Japanese are Christians but many of them enjoy Christmas trees, lights, presents and the like. Nobody there would suggest they are Western because of it.
I don't know which way the residents of the United Kingdom will jump. We will find out in a few hours. The European Union, which sparked this election, is of course an entirely different idea from our multi-cultural idea. In nature it is more ASEAN and other trading blocks. It is important and the UK should be part of it. We should have a much stronger association with it than we have.
We might have helped the UK remain in the EU far more than we have if we had taken much more interest in the EU.