The EU and USA are not recognising the referendum in Crimea. In both zones the political classes simply fail to understand that democracy is the will of the people and that for almost 100 years an abiding principle of international law has been the principle of self-determination.
Today I feel more strongly as ever on this matter.
The referendum in the Crimea was not perfect. I am not sure that 95% of Crimeans really wanted to rejoin Russia. But the vast majority clearly did. And as such let the people have their say.
In contrast when the people of, say, Ireland have voted no to the concentration of powers within the EU, the leaders of the Evil Empire have simply bullied them and told them to think again.
In Kosovo the 1991 referendum was clearly somewhat flawed. Would you as a minority Serbian have rushed back to your burned out village to vote? But most Kosovans wanted to be free of Serbia – that was clear and so the EU recognised the result. Natch the EU did not recognise referendums held in Northern Kosovan districts in 2012 which – with a Serbian majority population - voted to leave Kosovo.
For the EU referendums are only valid if the little people vote the right way. Otherwise they are either not recognised or the little people are told to vote again. This is not democracy. What has happened in Crimea is democracy. And as such we should be supporting it and the principle of self-determination without reservation.
The UK should today be imposing sanctions on Belgium and confiscating the assets of anyone employed by the Evil Empire at a senior level in order to show our support for democracy and self-determination and our opposition to those who seek to deny the wishes of the people if those wishes are “inconvenient.”