‘Nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action,
but not the execution of any human design.’
Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767)

12 July 2018

On the Record | Trump may meet BoJo in Brexit row

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Trump may meet BoJo in Brexit row’:

Could Boris Johnson emerge from the debacle of Chequers to become prime minister of Britain? That is the question following Theresa May’s capitulation, where she committed the government to a soft-Brexit that seems foredoomed to satisfy neither the Remainers or those who want to hold out for the expressed will of Britons for full independence.

Mrs. May’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, was first to resign late Sunday. In his resignation letter, Mr. Davis wrote that he feared “the current trend of policy and tactics is making” leaving the EU customs and regulatory framework “look less and less likely” and that the upshot of Chequers “will be to make the supposed control by Parliament illusory rather than real.”

The foreign secretary made his move the following morning. In his letter taking leave of office, Mr. Johnson feared that the Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.” The government’s position on Brexit, he said, means that Britain is “truly headed for the status of colony,” even before Brussels has made its counter-proposal.

With the Chequers agreement in hand, Mr. Johnson said “the Government now has a song to sing” but, having “practiced the words over the weekend,” he admitted that “they stick in the throat.”

Read more . . .

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My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.