Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Primrose Lane: How Disraeli Would See Brexit’:
What would Disraeli do about Brexit? An apt question this Primrose Day weekend — an occasion to commemorate Benjamin Disraeli’s death in 1881 and promote his beloved Conservative party.Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston’s father, was a principal founder of the Primrose League, formed to take advantage of Disraeli’s 1867 reform act that enlarged the voting franchise to growing numbers of the working and middle classes.
The League would educate and build on this new-found “Tory democracy” and, to echo Disraeli, “dish the Whigs.” As for its unique name, the League was named for the plant. Queen Victoria sent a wreath of its blossoms to Disraeli’s funeral with a note saying that the primrose was his “favorite flower.”
How would Disraeli feel about Brexit? It is well to remember Lord Brougham’s caution. “No one can pronounce with perfect confidence on the conduct which any statesman would have pursued,” he wrote, “had he survived the times in which he flourished.”
On Brexit, however, we can pronounce without hesitation Disraeli’s support. The ground of his political principle lay on the bedrock from which Brexit was born. For Disraeli, Britain and her independence were paramount: “The program of the Conservative party is to maintain the Constitution of the country.”
Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.
My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.
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