On the Record | ‘No Deal’ means ‘No Problem’ as Brexit nears

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘“No Deal” means “No Problem” as Brexit nears’:

“Brexit deal hopes dashed.” So reads the headline in the London Sun, after Brexit minister Dominic Raab flies to Brussels for emergency talks with EU officials. Disappointment springs from the fount of so much angst for the United Kingdom — Ireland. Is the promise of Brexit coming undone?

Much ado about nothing, methinks.

Don’t get me wrong. Britain’s successful uncoupling from the European Union is very much a concern. It’s just that this latest crisis isn’t really much of a crisis. It’s a manufactured crisis.

The question of an “Irish backstop” is only one more obstacle thrown up to wrong-foot the British prime minister. And to the EU’s satisfaction, Theresa May has proven herself less than adept on the Brexit file.

Brinkmanship diplomacy, this isn’t.

Read more . . .

Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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

On the Record | A ‘Dream Team’ for the Tories Comes into Focus

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘A “Dream Team” for the Tories Comes into Focus’:

One thing provided by the autumn party conference of the ruling Conservatives in Britain is a glimpse of the emerging dream team. It pairs with the boisterous polemicist Boris Johnson the calm, impassioned Jacob Rees-Mogg, who delivered a Brexit “primer” that will set a kind of standard in the seasons ahead.

It illuminates why he is so popular among party activists. “BoJo,” famed journalist, former London mayor, and ex-foreign secretary, along with investment banker “The Mogg,” have the potential to become the next Thomas Jefferson and Albert Gallatin, Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Mellon. Theirs is a vision for Britain as an open, free-market, growing independent country, hewing to limited government and fiscal prudence, and leading its vast commonwealth loyalists in the liberal tradition.

“Making a success of Brexit” was the theme of this fringe gathering, to fulfil the promise of the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union that became, in Mr. Johnson words, Britain’s “Independence Day.” And for Mr. Rees-Mogg, “just the vote was itself a success.”

For him, it was a vote to leave Brussels and its fixation on regulations and tariffs, to cast off Remainers’ insidious progress toward “managing decline,” and to resurrect Margaret Thatcher’s faith that “a mature economy can revive and reform and succeed by its own efforts and endeavors.”

Read more . . .

Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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

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And, from Nova Scotia, may I wish you a peaceful Thanksgiving week-end!

On the Record | Brexit Backtrack Hints of Treason, Johnson Warns

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit Backtrack Hints of Treason, Johnson Warns’:

The most astonishing moment of Boris Johnson’s speech on the fringe of the British Conservative Party conference was his thinly-veiled suggestion that the compromise plan on Brexit backed by Prime Minister Theresa May is flirting with treason.

The former foreign minister, laying the ground for his own bid for leadership, stopped short Tuesday of directly accusing Mrs. May & Co of having committed treason. He didn’t even use the T-word. He skated, though, close to the line.

Were Britain to leave the European Union and relinquish membership rights, yet remain subject to evolving trade regulations as part of the Chequers compromise, Mr. Johnson said, its authors would “risk prosecution under the 14^th century statute of præmunire, which says that no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country.”

That was a nod to a series of laws designed to block papal authority, bowing to which was seen as an act of treason. The laws of præmunire are now defunct. The point, though, put into the sharpest relief yet the rift among the governing Conservatives.

Read more . . .

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