A country votes against the EU in a referendum in which rabidly anti-immigrant sentiments are aired by senior politicians. That is Hungary, of course, where voters have just rejected — with a majority of 98 per cent, albeit it on a turnout of 44 per cent, too low to make it binding — an EU plan for the country to house 1200 refugees. Now, perhaps, the Remain camp in Britain will stop trying to portray Britain as a nasty, xenophobic country out of step with European values and admit that actually we are really rather liberal in our attitudes towards migration. The only difference is that we had an in-out referendum on EU membership and no other country has yet done so.
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Hardeep Singh
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If you want illiberal sentiments on migrants, don’t look to Nigel Farage — try Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Prime Minister, who has spent the past few weeks complaining that migrants are ‘over-running’ his country, adding ‘They’re not just banging on the door, they’re breaking the doors down on top of us.’
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