Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Happy Brexit Day, Despite the Wait’:
Your Diarist would be amiss were he not to wish, all and sundry, a happy “Independence Day.”Doubtless you think either I’m having an “episode” or it’s already the Fourth of July (after the speediest fortnight in history). Well, I can assure you that we’re still in the last quarter of June.
No, I bring glad tidings on the third anniversary of Britain’s 2016 referendum vote to exit the European Union. Huzzah! If Britain and America are divided by a common language, how does one say “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in London?
The historic occasion sneaks upon even the most earnest Brexiteer almost as an afterthought. That speaks to what supporters of Britain’s independence have endured, for the past 36 months, from the machinations of the European Union.
Boris Johnson, now a leading contender to become the next Conservative leader and British prime minister, coined the “Independence Day” Brexit shorthand during the lead-up to the referendum, in which he made a huge contribution.
Until he stepped into the van, the pro-independence faction was largely about the faults of membership in the EU — the costs, the interference, the open border. It was Mr. Johnson who focused on the “sunny uplands” of liberty.
Yuuuge, as Mr. Trump might say.
At the time, it is easy to see how idealists would identify with the Second Continental Congress and the 56 delegates sweltering in the Philadelphian heat that July 1776.
The Founders were debating the merits of Richard Henry Lee’s Virginia resolution, that these thirteen “United Colonies” declare themselves “free and independent states . . . absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,” with “all political connection . . . totally dissolved.”
Two and a half centuries later and with the shoes on different feet, the ensuing realities disclose that the Brexit euphoria was premature.
Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.
My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.
Posts
