On the Record | Is Britain Really Going to Leave?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Is Britain Really Going to Leave?’:

“Is Britain really going to leave?” This is the question put to Boris Johnson from people around the world, the former foreign minister informed the House of Commons last night, during debate on the Government’s proposal to withdraw from the European Union.

“Do we really have the courage and the self-belief to deliver what people voted for?” Mr. Johnson pressed. “And to seize the opportunities? Independent, democratic self-government? Real free trade deals?” Will a liberated Britain have the foresight to institute a tax and regulatory regime that incentivizes entrepreneurs and investment, domestic and foreign, based on “laws made in this country and not in Brussels?

“Are we really going to embrace that future?” BoJo asked.

Mr. Johnson is not alone in putting this rhetorical question before his fellow MPs. G.K. Chesterton raised it more than a century ago. Britons, Chesterton wrote, enjoy “a lonely taste in liberty” that “perplex their critics and perplex themselves.” As the United Kingdom grapples with the fate of Brexit, this latest iteration of perplexity is played out before us.

Magna Carta, the charter in which medieval barons exerted their rights against King John, is considered the benchmark of liberty in Britain. “Magna Carta is the greatest constitutional document of all times,” senior judge Lord Denning opined, “the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”

Margaret Thatcher was all in. To a Parisian interviewer who asked during the bicentenary of the Fall of the Bastille, “Are human rights a French invention?,” she replied trenchantly, “No, of course they are not.” The Iron Lady’s riposte to Gallic chauvinism? “We had Magna Carta 1215.”

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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 | Brexit Beckons the Courage of Thomas Paine

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit Beckons the Courage of Thomas Paine’:

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” So Thomas Paine consoled revolutionary America, when hopes of independence seemed dashed by circumstance. He expounded his revolutionary politics in England, too, a plaque at the White Hart Hotel at Lewes, East Sussex, reminds. Today, as Britain revolts against EU membership and for its own independence, Paine’s words bring it home. Brexit hangs in the balance as the scales weigh the uncertain benefits of withdrawing on terms dictated by Europe or striking out at the appointed hour minus them, without regret.

No contest, I say. To quote Disraeli: “Departures should be sudden.”

In the 2016 referendum, the choice before Britons was stark. Whether, on the one hand, to leave the European Union and regain the marks of sovereignty and self-government or, on the other hand, to remain in the EU and see their laws subservient to a foreign court, their acts of parliament subject to the approval of unelected EU bureaucrats.

The people opted for independence. Yet their Brexit vote is being frustrated by insiders who deride it, lament it, abhor it. Either by a political class with a share in EU control, who do not want their power curtailed. Or business interests with a financial stake in trade according to EU regulations — “crony continentalism” — and fear selling their wares in the competition of free markets.

Or ordinary citizens, who have lived so long under the paternalism of the EU that they want for the confidence that independence engenders and the self-respect that is the reward of self-rule. Brexit’s troubles are compounded by politicians who do not believe in it and do not want it; who promote it publicly but do all within their power to frustrate and despoil the vote for freedom.

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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 | British Solons in Tight Spot on Brexit

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘British Solons in Tight Spot on Brexit’:

“Depend upon it, sir,” said Samuel Johnson, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” With Brexit 81 days away and counting, we begin to wonder at the focus of British politicians. How concentrated is the mind of Prime Minister Theresa May? And what of her adversaries?

We’ll know soon enough. Parliament is scheduled to take up Brexit when it meets on Monday [to-day]. Center stage will be the Withdrawal Bill setting out the terms of Britain’s departure from the European Union. Again. That same bill that Mrs. May punted to the new year when she delayed a December vote in the House of Commons.

That tactic led Conservative colleagues to hold a confidence vote on her leadership — a vote Mrs. May ultimately won. But while her tenure as Tory head is assured, her premiership definitely less so. Mrs. May retains the keys to No. 10 due only to the lack of a credible alternative. (Boris Johnson, whose bravura we admire, enjoys strong support with the grassroots but little on the Government benches.)

With March 29 as “Brexit Day,” the Prime Minister has a fortnight from Parliament’s return to get her Bill passed, to initiate a series of meetings preceding “secession.”

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Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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