Fallout from Britain's vote to leave the EU

Bill O'Reilly breaks down the Brexit on 'The O'Reilly Factor'

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," June 24, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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ERIC BOLLING, FOX NEWS CO-HOST: Hi, I'm Eric Bolling in for Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us tonight. Let's get straight to our top story. The stunning political and economic fallout from Britain's vote to leave the European Union. Bill O'Reilly sounded off with his thoughts on the big vote just last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, THE O'REILLY FACTOR HOST: David of Craddock, Birmingham, England. "Bill, what is your view: Should the U.K. stay or leave the European Union?" Having lived in London I believe you guys should leave EU, British tradition is under assault.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: And the political fallout being matched by crushing day in the financial markets. We'll have more on that a little bit later in the program but joining us now on the phone, Bill O'Reilly. So, Bill, what's this really all about? What's going on?

O'REILLY: It's about the immigration, open borders. When I made my analysis last week just answering a letter, I based it on the fact that I lived in London for almost a year. I spent my third year in college in the University Of London System. And I have been back quite a number of times since then.

And British tradition is very strong. And what has happened over the past 30 years is that the British System has allowed so many people in and those folks generally speaking, have not assimilated.

So that if you go to parts of London, you are not really in England, you're in Pakistan or you're in the Middle East or you're in the West Indies. And everybody knows this. And I think that with the open border EU policy where anybody can go anywhere at any time that the English people said, you know what? Enough. We're not feeling comfortable with being overwhelmed and we are feeling under siege. And that's what they voted on.

I don't think it was Economic. I think it was all about immigration.

BOLLING: Bill, this has been around for more than 50 years. And this is - - this possibility of one or more countries pulling out of the European Union has come up time and time again. Why did it work this time? Why did it happen that they got the vote they needed this time? Some are pointing at President Obama's comments from a couple of months ago.

O'REILLY: No. That didn't have anything to do with it. It's terrorism. There is a huge Muslim component in England. They have a Muslim mayor of London, you know, who recently banned subway ads that he didn't like. Women in bathing suits.

I think that then is the British people have had it. And they fear terrorism just as the American people fear terrorism. Now, do they brush all Muslims with the terrorist label? No. No. But there is enough, if you go and travel England as I did in 1970. It was very, very traditional and now it isn't. And a lot of people over the age of 40 don't like the change. So they say, you know, we don't want to be part of an open border society. So we're going to now have our own country and try to get it back. You are going to see some of that happen in the USA as well.

BOLLING: So, OK. So you're saying it started over there, came over here. What about those that think they, you know, the old saying when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. Do you think some of the Trump stuff going on here is spreading over there?

O'REILLY: No, I think just the opposite. I think Trump tapped into the nationalism that has been apparent in on the European continent for about 10 years. You look at every country. The fastest growing political parties are of the Central-Right parties which is saying, you know, we don't want to be overrun by people in North Africa and in the Middle East and in the South Asian area. We just don't.

It's not a matter of racism. This is what the left will always say. You're just by doing this commentary, Bolling. I'm going to get called a racist on the Far Left Crank websites. But it's not about that. It's about being able to assimilate, the immigrants who want to come to any certain country. And in Great Britain, they haven't been able to do that.

There are certain cities that are dominated by non-English speaking people. I mean, you can't even hear English spoken. And in parts of America we're starting to see that as well. And so what Trump did was basically see that Americans are getting fed up with the same things that English people are getting fed up with. Too much, too fast, and they're not assimilating. Things are changing and people don't like it ands that what's going on.

BOLLING: What about the financial aspects of this, Bill? I mean the U.K. the net contribution to the U.K. is they're paying more into the European Union than they're getting out of it. By to the tune of _7 billion. The only one with more net contribution is Germany with _14 billion.

Meanwhile, there are about 15 countries who are net takers from the system. At some point you get tired of picking up the tab all the time, don't you?

O'REILLY: There is that. But I don't really think that that wrote the vote. I really think it was an emotional vote against open borders. I really think that. And I know -- and I'm not wrong, Bolling. Sometimes I say maybe I can be wrong, I'm not wrong.

And I think that the British people feel that they can have a strong economy without open borders. And that they want their country to be regulated to some extent. And I think they're right. You know, I think this big 600 point stock market drop today is a buying opportunity. I'm very conservative investor. But I bought a little stock today.

BOLLING: Oh, boy.

O'REILLY: Yeah, I did. I mean I think -- I don't think that this is going to hurt the U.S. economy. It might hurt the British economy but it's a two-year deal. They have two years to get out of it. So I think this was, you know, panic sell and you know how would that goes. But I could be wrong on that. That I could be wrong on. The reason they voted to get out of the EU I'm not wrong on.

BOLLING: No. But can I maybe -- can we compromise here a little bit? I agree with you it's immigration but immigration can encompass many things. It can be the economy, jobs, because if there is a million people coming in to your economy, they're working. They're taking jobs of nationals.

O'REILLY: There is something to that but, you know, England doesn't have, you know, a crisis economy or a crisis .

BOLLING: Yeah.

O'REILLY: . unemployment situation. And we don't have a crisis unemployment situation in America. It's more cultural. It's more we don't like all of this change. We don't want open borders. On Monday, I'm going to do the talking points on the fact that we all know what the left will never say. Many people on the left want open borders in the United States.

BOLLING: Right.

O'REILLY: They don't want anybody stopping anyone from coming here.

BOLLING: I have to stop it Bill. Thank you very much for calling, we appreciate that.

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