On the Record | Will Thatcher’s Ghost Haunt Mrs. May?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Will Thatcher’s Ghost Haunt Mrs. May?’:

What an irony that Prime Minister Theresa May’s crisis over Brexit is coming to a head on the 28^th anniversary, to-day, of the fall from power of Margaret Thatcher. If only the Iron Lady were alive today.

She was challenged for leadership in November 1990 by fellow Tory Michael Heseltine. His perfidy fell short of toppling her outright, but Mrs. Thatcher failed to secure the margin needed to survive the vote. So a further vote of confidence became necessary. After consulting colleagues, Mrs. Thatcher concluded she lacked the support to see off the second round.

What was Mrs. Thatcher’s political sin that turned her caucus against her? Obstinacy in the face of growing resistance to a poll tax that levied rates regardless of one’s ability to pay was the catalyst for her removal, say opponents, who did not lack for self-justification.

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Addendum. Though I remain sympathetic to Edmund Burke’s sentiments expressed to the electors of Bristol in 1774 — ‘that a politician betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices [his judgement] to your opinion’ — Public Choice Theory has heightened my suspicions of politicians and government officials who claim to have skills and knowledge of which the general public is deprived.

As Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of Nations, no one person enjoys the breadth and depth of knowledge required to direct the whole economic programme of a nation (cited in my New York Sun wire). F.A. Hayek explored this theme in his Nobel Prize for Economics acceptance speech in 1974, ‘The Pretense of Knowledge’.

Public Choice also questions the conventional wisdom that private individuals are self-interested, whereas public officials are directed by the best interests of the commonweal. Does this mean that public actors never consider their own interests when making political decisions?

Finally, with respect to Brexit and Britain’s efforts to leave the trade apparatus imposed by the European Union: economics teaches that the best option available, based on the division of labour and the law of comparative advantage, is free trade. While there is much discussion of Britain securing free trade deals with the global community, it is far more likely that ‘managed’ trade agreements will be secured — still a better option than what the EU presents. Nevertheless, it suggests that the UK Government, in a paternalistic fashion, does not trust its business community to strike out on its own, unsupervised. But as Ludwig von Mises wrote, ‘If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reasons also reject every kind of government action.’

Thus it is with Theresa May’s draft Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. The document not only insinuates that Government officials must protect British citizens from their own worst instincts for freedom, but it abrogates the 2016 referendum that voted to restore lost liberties and UK sovereignty.

Does anybody now question why Britons feel more secure in their own opinions over the wisdom of their elected representatives? Those same Government officials who run roughshod over the rule of law and trample in the mud the traditions of British parliamentary democracy?

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

On the Record | Is Boris Johnson the Leader for Brexit’s Darkest Hour?

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Is Boris Johnson the Leader for Brexit’s Darkest Hour?’:

A British politician who lived by his pen, enjoyed a chequered reputation attracting supporters and detractors, warned of an existential threat to his nation, while boasting American antecedents? Many will answer “Winston Churchill.” Full marks, though, for taking a contemporary turn and replying “Boris Johnson.”

Churchill’s dogged leadership during World War II and foresight in its aftermath, when, at Fulton, Missouri, he warned of the Soviet “iron curtain” descending over Eastern Europe, won him heroic status in America — not to mention the rare privilege of becoming an honorary U.S. citizen. His mother was Brooklyn heiress Jennie Jerome (Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, was born in New York City).

Movie audiences of Darkest Hour glimpsed Churchill’s early days as Prime Minister, as he struggled to rescue an army surrounded at Dunkirk and to convince fellow Conservatives and a hostile Commons to fight against German aggression instead of submitting to German terms. Britons would “fight on the beaches… never surrender,” and hold out for, “in one word, victory.”

Britain’s battle today is bureaucratic, but no less existential.

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My thanks to editor Wlady Pleszczynski of The American Spectator.

On the Record | Britons Await the Promise of Brexit

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Britons Await the Promise of Brexit’:

Prime Minister Theresa May’s loss of another Brexit minister, Dominic Raab, invites a paraphrase of Oscar Wilde, “to lose one Brexit minister, Prime Minister, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.”

Carelessness does not even begin to encompass Mrs. May’s ineptness since the June 2016 referendum vote in favor of exiting the European Union and striking out once more as a sovereign country in command of its laws, borders, public purse, and trade policies.

Mr. Raab’s reasons for his departure — he could not ‘in good conscience” support Mrs. May’s draft withdrawal agreement from the European Union — echo the Brexiteer consensus: Dissatisfaction with the proposed resolution of the so-called “Irish backstop.”

Government attempts to address the Irish question, allowing Brussels to maintain the integrity of its single market and customs union, have resulted in proposals that leave parts of the UK — that is, Northern Ireland — under EU jurisdiction.

Adding insult to injury, the draft framework forbids the UK from unilaterally curtailing the backstop, while giving significant authority to the EU and the Irish government. In his resignation letter, Mr. Raab said the draft “presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom.”

Mr. Rabb said he could not support “an indefinite backstop arrangement, where the EU holds a veto over our ability to exit.” That echoes in spirit Boris Johnson’s complaint that it would reduce Great Britain to a “vassal state.”

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