On the Record | Can BoJo’s Mojo Carry Brexit Forward?

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Can BoJo’s Mojo Carry Brexit Forward?’:

At last! Brexiteers may be forgiven the renewed spring in their step. When Boris Johnson climbs to the top of Disraeli’s “greasy pole” this week — leader of the Conservative Party Tuesday; Wednesday, prime minister — he will achieve the pinnacle of any British politician’s career. With courage and fortitude, the next premier will reciprocate for his country: Taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union.

President Trump characteristically took to Twitter to “congratulate” Mr. Johnson as the incoming “Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.” The President tweeted about Britain’s Donald Trump: “He will be great!”

It tempts fate to quote William Wordsworth in anticipation of Britain’s independence from Brussels. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” the poet enthused. “But to be young was very heaven!”

This is especially apt because Wordsworth wrote his paean in praise of the French Revolution. History records that sad tale of murder, plunder, conquest, and ruination.

Happily, Brexit is the counter-movement to what the European Union has spawned. Its aims include restoring to Britons political rights outsourced to the Continent. Border security. Regulatory responsibility. Trade flexibility. Self-government.

Parliament will be the beneficiary of sovereignty regained. Moreover, if the Brexit dream is to be fulfilled, its promise must spread farther than the debating chambers of Westminster.

For British independence means nothing if it does not include the bulwark of the United Kingdom, the people themselves. More personal freedom, less government action — which means lower taxes, reduced spending, further decentralization, and, ultimately, more power for individuals to innovate and trade and associate.

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end,” Lord Acton wrote. “It is itself the highest political end.” At the moment, Brexit is the thing without which all other aspects of British freedom are held at bay. Thus, Brexit first.

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Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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My thanks to editor Wlady Pleszczynski of The American Spectator.

On the Record | Anti-Brexit Britons Turn on the Queen

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Anti-Brexit Britons Turn on the Queen’:

Could Queen Elizabeth II become a pawn in the Brexit drama? In their latest bid to frustrate Britain’s independence from the European Union, Remainers are rumored to be considering enlisting Elizabeth II as an envoy to Brussels “to plead” for delay.

So reports Breitbart London in respect of the most recent plot to stymie Britain’s exit from the grip of Brussels mandarins. Three years since a clear majority voted to leave, efforts to betray the will of the people and remain subservient to the EU grow more desperate as the “latest” exit date of October 31 nears.

That new leadership is due in Downing Street only heightens the likelihood that Britain will be out, come Hallowe’en. That the incoming premier will ask the Queen to end — or prorogue — the current Parliament and thus ensure Brexit doubtless contributes to this competition for royal favor.

Is the irony lost on no one? Britons’ principal reason to leave is based on the EU’s growing appetite for power, morphing into a “super-state,” evolving its own prerogatives, betraying the original plan to pool together sovereign European states for limited projects of mutual benefit.

Of those powers Brexiteers want to claw back, top of the list is Britain’s ability to craft its own regulatory parameters, negotiate trade deals, oversee border security, and legislate free from Brussels oversight. To wit, to restore sovereignty to Westminster and, not so incidentally, the Queen.

After all, she is the United Kingdom’s “Head of State.” All laws are enacted in her name. Her ministers swear fealty to her. Her “subjects” send representatives to Parliament to help her govern the nation.

Even Boris Johnson would — if he does, as seems likely, emerge as the next Conservative prime minister once leadership ballots are counted early this week — visit Buckingham Palace to receive his appointment as Elizabeth’s “first minister” and “kiss hands” with his sovereign.

Brexit would be no less a victory for Britain’s constitutional monarchy than for the British people. The Queen was never more a mere “figurehead” than when ultimate responsibility of key national issues was decided far from Albion.

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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 | Just How Bullish Is BoJo, Really, on ‘No Deal’ Brexit?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Just How Bullish Is BoJo, Really, on “No Deal” Brexit?’:

With little more than two weeks before Britons are presented with a new Conservative party leader and, ipso facto — with the Queen’s consent — prime minister, parliamentarians in thrall to the European Union are becoming desperate in their attempts to stymie their own country’s independence.

Their latest gambit is a veiled threat to paralyse the new premier’s agenda, if Britain’s “re-opened” negotiations with Brussels come to nought and a “no deal” Brexit becomes official Government policy.

These solons are seemingly oblivious that, regardless of who takes up residence in Downing Street, the UK leaving the EU, with or without a deal, is the default position by dint of law, legislation having been passed with clear majorities in Parliament to leave, no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts.”

This obliviousness has legs only because the outgoing Prime Minister, Theresa May, wheedled extensions to the original March 29 deadline. Not surprisingly, these recalcitrant Remainers reside on the Government benches, too: “conscientious” Conservatives all.

The UK’s supineness to the EU has nigh scuppered the electoral future of the Tory party. Its officials have put the interests of European comity before the British people, time and again. Even now, at the eleventh hour, it’s difficult to discern the extent of sincerity in respect of Brexit.

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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 | Boris Beware: Only Brexit Is Indispensable

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Boris Beware: Only Brexit Is Indispensable’:

Brexit is no equal to Paradise. I raise the point only to counter Victorian poet Robert Browning, who opined that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” That is to say, Brexit should be within the grasp of Britons who asked for independence from the European Union. It is not too much to ask.

Yet more than three years since the historic vote, Britain is still a member of the EU. Having failed to meet the deadline of March 29, Brexiteers are understandably underwhelmed they will actually achieve independence by the new one, October 31.

Surely, after finally cashiering the “Remainer” prime minister, Theresa May, and with two Tory leadership contenders vowing to exit on the prescribed date, “do or die,” Brexiteers can rest on their oars? Would were it so simple.

Truth is, neither candidate, Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Hunt, can be wholly trusted on the Brexit file. Not to impugn the probity of either man. Rather, that political exigencies — the hope of holding out for more favorable terms, fear of a general election, a Jeremy Corbyn “socialist” government, or Project Fear’s “economic collapse” propaganda — may induce them to waffle on Brexit’s end of October deadline or its “independence” agenda.

Breitbart columnist James Delingpole voices the collective concern over the leading protagonist.

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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.