On the Record | Ghost of EU Superstate Haunts Britain’s Path to Independence

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Ghost of EU Superstate Haunts Britain’s Path to Independence’:

Another Christmas has come and gone. The season of Santa Claus and for remembering the birth in Bethlehem of a small child, heralded by angels proclaiming Him the “Prince of Peace.” And, not to be outdone by Halloween, of ghosts. For who can forget Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” and its story of the scrimping Ebenezer Scrooge? Cold-hearted and tight-fisted, he is visited by reforming Ghosts of Yuletides past, present, and future. Scrooge is redeemed, and sets out on a path of personal and public approbation. The tale is no less apropos for British prime minister Boris Johnson, preparing to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union. The EU has become the specter haunting Brexit.

The phantom menacing Britain is the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who in a recent essay shares his vision of the future relationship. Mr. Barnier begins by expressing regret at Britain’s determination to exit but, in a spirit of equanimity and good will, looks forward to the “opportunity to forge a new UK-EU partnership.” Taking a page from former premier Theresa May, he reiterates that though the “UK may be leaving the EU … it is not leaving Europe.”

Instead, Mr. Barnier outlines three areas of mutual interest. One such step will be “to work together and discuss joint solutions to global challenges.” Another, “to build a close security relationship.” Can anyone contend against these aspirations? Britain pursues its international agenda with myriad intergovernmental agencies, be it the United Nations, NATO, or World Trade Organization. No serious impediments exist from extending its collaborative reach to former colleagues in the EU.

Mr. Barnier’s third area for cooperation, however, sets the cat among the pigeons.

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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 | Elizabeth II, in Christmas Speech, Fails to Say ‘Brexit’

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Elizabeth II, in Christmas Speech, Fails to Say “Brexit” ’:

What is to be made of the fact that the British monarch failed in her Christmas address — the sixty-eighth of her long reign — failed to mention the fact that the United Kingdom of which she is the sovereign is about to end its membership in the European Union and become truly independent once again? It is, after all, far and away the most important development for Britain in the year Her Majesty is reviewing for the holiday. Is there method to her silence on this head?

The question invites reflection because seldom can Elizabeth speak so freely, as she can in her Christmas speech, to her subjects in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, including men and women of good cheer around the globe. Her grandfather, George V, began the tradition in 1932, when he used the wireless to reach out to the farthest corners of the British Empire upon which, went the boast, “the sun never set.”

Now, the Queen sends season’s greetings via radio, television, and the world wide web. The Christmas broadcast is Her Majesty’s royal review of the year just past and appraisal of the year to come. In 2019 — as for much of the last three years — top of mind has been the fate of Britain’s independence from the European Union. As Elizabeth surveys the receding twelvemonth, she characteristically eschews hyperbole, merely calling its consequences “quite bumpy.”

Come the end of January — barring catastrophe — the UK will at long last leave the EU. It might seem only natural that the Queen, as Head of State, should want to address the effects of Brexit upon her people. Yet nowhere does she mention it directly, nor, for that matter, any political development — whether it be December’s General Election or the summer appointment of her fifteenth prime minister, Boris Johnson, during her 67-year reign (beginning with Sir Winston Churchill).

Not a word about Brexit. In part Her Majesty’s reticence is due to constitutional convention, in which the Crown forsakes the grubby details of politics to the government, rising above the fray and serving as an unbiased sovereign for all. Nor can one imagine that the Brexit path is one on which the Queen would be eager to tread, so stressful are relations between Leavers and Remainers. The acrimony arising from the election, the culmination of years of recriminations, suggests that few want Brexit to intrude upon festivities of Christmas and Chanukah.

We mere commoners, though, may spare a thought as we stare at the Yule log blazing on the hearth or the Chanukah candles, for what the Queen herself thinks 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 | Britain Enters a Long Overdue Neo-Disraelian Moment

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘ Britain Enters a Long Overdue Neo-Disraelian Moment’:

As 2019 winds to a close, let us remark on how our year of turmoil and drama has brought us to a neo-Disraelian moment. You may say that’s all too convenient a comment from a scribe who for years has been blogging under the rubric of the Disraeli-Macdonald Institute. But there you have it. It’s not the first time that the sun has, in quite this way, lit up the meadows of the United Kingdom.

Back in the 19th Century, the Kingdom also faced social, economic, and political ferment with a leader possessing an “idiosyncratic” skill-set, an insightful prescription for national greatness, and popular appeal. Benjamin Disraeli — whose birth his votaries celebrate this weekend — warmed the late Victorian period with just such a combination. Historian David Starkey reckons that, metaphorically, his time has come again.

“The best model for understanding and indeed working on the situation in which we find ourselves is Disraeli,” says the constitutional historian. He defines the Disraelian project as a composite of patriotism and paternalism. For Disraeli, the twin poles were the eminence of the British Empire, plus the inter-twined interests of the aristocracy (including the Crown) and the working classes.

Both allied against a cosmopolitan oligarchy: unrooted and unappreciative of the deep fabric of British history and tradition. Boris Johnson’s constituency is contemporary but no less framed upon Disraeli’s model. For the Prime Minister, his patriotism is framed by his advocacy for the UK’s independence from the European Union. Brexit means sovereignty, self-government, and self-determination.

Mr. Johnson’s paternalism, meanwhile, is the lynchpin for the Government’s spending agenda upon the National Health Service, the Armed Forces, vast education schemes, and the earthly environment. Disraeli and Johnson share more than a political platform. Both achieved early success as scribes and novelists. Both grasp, instinctively, the importance of Britain’s heritage in political discourse.

Both Disraeli and Bojo rose to power within the Conservative party. Grandees may have been skeptical of the bona-fides of both, but both were beloved by not only the ranks but also the files.

Nor has this bond across time gone unnoticed.

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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 | The Queen Backs Brexit, After All

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘The Queen Backs Brexit, After All’:

“My Government’s priority is to deliver the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on 31 January,” Her Majesty intoned at the State Opening of Parliament. “My Ministers will bring forward legislation to ensure the United Kingdom’s exit on that date and to make the most of the opportunities that this brings for all the people of the United Kingdom.”

Elizabeth II vowed that her Government would “seek a future relationship with the European Union based on a free trade agreement that benefits the whole of the United Kingdom.” Then, with an eye to America and other national markets, she announced they will also “begin trade negotiations with other leading global economies.”

No doubt, Her Majesty reflected, she’s said all this before. Still, her kingdom remains tethered, inexplicably, to the EU. What’s changed? Boris Johnson is prime minister, now with a majority parliament standing foursquare behind him and Brexit.

The Queen’s Speech is a yearly overview of the government’s agenda, presenting in broad brushstrokes its objectives in office; sometimes even coinciding, wits whisper, with electoral manifestos. Such laundry lists of pending legislation can range from the transformational, like the UK seceding from EU membership, to the mundane, as when the Queen announced reviewing “hospital car parking charges.”

Like any political document, the speech has its share of boilerplate, whether it be “an ambitious program of domestic reform,” a commitment “to invest in our gallant Armed Forces,” or a promise “to promote and expand” the UK’s “influence in the world.” No constituency is left untouched, whether it be health, education, social care, crime, or the environment. Such are the demands and expectations of modern participatory democracy.

Conservative governments are not exempt from the spending spree, even when they should know better. Such as when Boris Johnson’s ministry pledges to increase the “national living wage,” regardless of whether it benefits the poor.

Theory demonstrates that minimum wage policies put people out of work — usually the marginal worker and those new to the workforce — without the experience or seniority to climb the employment ladder. Statistics bear this out, too, here in the Northeast and on the Coast where restaurant workers are particularly vulnerable to “virtue signalling.”

Likewise with climate change strategy. Pity the Queen for having to assert that Her Government will “take steps to meet the world-leading target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050” — heedless of the hardships this creates. The UK petroleum industry is exposed to opprobrium, manufacturing will meet increasing energy expenditures (eventually conveyed to consumers), and Britons will brave rising heating bills. Need one add that the “consensus” on climate change, calling forth these measures, has challengers?

Greater consensus will coalesce around Mr. Johnson’s efforts to “invest in the country’s public services and infrastructure,” while simultaneously “keeping borrowing and debt under control.” Conservatives keen to the failures of Keynesian deficit spending will wince at their party’s abandonment of Margaret Thatcher’s focus on economy, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge for “the sustainability of the public finances through a responsible fiscal strategy.”

On this head, Brexit is the secret weapon for economic growth.

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

On the Record | Where Stands Boris Johnson on the Big State?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Where Stands Boris Johnson on the Big State?’:

’Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House — of Commons — Brexiteers cannot help but stir at the prospect that Britain’s independence from the European Union is, at last, a likelihood. So on the eve of the Queen’s Speech setting out the Government’s agenda for the new year, who wants to play Grinch and ruin the festive atmosphere? Certainly not I.

Rumors circulate out of 10 Downing Street that the incoming ministry will reintroduce a sharper Withdrawal Agreement within days, shorn of “soft” Brexit inducements included to entice Remainer Tory MPs last October. As well as legislation severing any lingering strands of Brussels’ entanglements, come December 2020. Britain will exit with a trade deal freed from the EU’s euphemistic “level playing field” of regulatory alignment, or make a “clean break.”

All this lies in the future. Americans, particularly supporters of President Trump, are transfixed by Boris Johnson’s ability to remain on top of the greasy pole of politics — despite the divisions allied against him at the general election. Even Vice President Joe Biden has got in on the action with the epiphany that Mr. Johnson’s trouncing of Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn bodes ill for merchants of socialism and anti-Semitism.

Up to a point, I say (quoting the demurral made famous by Evelyn Waugh in “Scoop”). Britons no doubt desire to “get Brexit done” and chart their own social, economic, and political course — a position Mr. Biden vigorously opposed. Yet Mr. Johnson’s Conservative manifesto also proffered generous outlays for infrastructure, health services, and welfare outreach, effectively neutralizing Labour’s surfeit of state spending and scheme to nationalize, once again, British industry.

F.H. Buckley calls this the “sweet spot” of politics: “tacking right on social issues [e.g., Brexit] while going middle of the road or left of center on economics.” By adopting this “Red Tory” approach to government policy, my friend Professor Buckley sees continuing electoral success for America’s and Britain’s center-right parties, despite the fact that “libertarian ideologues insist this isn’t conservatism.”

Let’s call this advocacy of “wet” Toryism “pre-Brexit” conservatism. Is, though, Brexit no more than independence from the rising statism of the European Union? Isn’t the promise of Brexit more individual freedom across the board? Or, to “invert” Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech, have Britons’ “successfully rolled back the frontiers of Brussels, only to see them re-imposed at Westminster”?

No, responds one branch of the Brexit brigade. Nor are they any less “One Nation” Tories than those who rally round Boris Johnson and the incoming government. The phrase “One Nation Conservatism” comes from Benjamin Disraeli himself . . .

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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 | Victory — Keep a ‘Clean Break’ at the Ready

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Victory — Keep a “Clean Break” at the Ready’:

Will it be “déjà vu all over again?” Not since June 23, 2016, have the prospects for Britain’s exit from the European Union looked so bright. Unlike the euphoria of that day, however, Brexiteers have endured three years of dither and delay that dampen effusions of enthusiasm. Older, and wiser, are they.

Less naïve and trusting, too. Let us hope this will be the only occasion for quoting Yogi Berra; let the litany of attempts to frustrate the people’s will — by Remainer MPs, Brussels mandarins, and the chattering classes — be ended. New Parliament. New Government. New Year. And a fresh start for British independence.

Broad brushstrokes are discernable on the political canvas. With at least 364 seats in a 650-seat House of Commons, Conservatives will again form government, this one with a projected 39-seat majority (totaling 365 seats), while the Labour party lost 59 seats from its results in 2017, winning only 203 — worsting Michael Foot’s record in 1983 by 6 seats.

Jeremy Corbyn announced he will not contest another election at Labour’s head. Spouting socialism as the people’s panacea has a debilitating effect upon one’s sense of reality, and nowhere is this more evident than in Labour’s rationale for its stunning upset. “Brexit done us in,” bemoan party stalwarts who point to their manifesto promise of a second referendum and their determination to vote “Remain.”

Others point to Mr. Corbyn’s autocratic leadership style that intimidated colleagues, stifled dissent, and saw him in disastrous relationships with terrorist sympathizers and anti-Semites. Amazingly, few Labourites make the connection between their leader and his Brexit policy, absolving themselves of all responsibility for an atrocious party operation.

The Scottish National Party was the other big winner in the election (returning 48 MPs to Westminster), arguably gaining more political advantage than the Tories. SNP probably won on its anti-Brexit message. More doubtful is whether all its voters equally cast ballots for Scottish independence. With such a geographic-specific electorate, the Scottish Nationals may share characteristics with Canada’s separatist Bloc Québécois: enjoying support less for its secessionist credentials than for concessions it can wrestle from the national government.

Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party were shut-out from Parliament. The strategy to stand-down candidates against Conservative incumbents helped secure Tory success; whether it was a benefit or a curse to Conservative fortunes in those seats it did contest — either aiding or blocking Labour challengers — probably a wash. Like prophets of old, Mr. Farage had a mission — to bring Brexit to the people and, with independence in sight, he passes from the front lines of active politics.

Boris Johnson returns to Downing Street for a good night’s rest. The Conservative victory is not as convincing as many would wish; nor is it a resounding disaster. A win is a win. Plans are to reintroduce his Withdrawal Bill before the end of the month and begin preparations for the EU exit on January 31. Can the Tories wrangle a trade deal by the end of 2020?

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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: Saturday Night Jive, on Election Eve

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: Saturday Night Jive, on Election Eve’:

To gauge what passes for progressive humor on topical politics, one can do worse than watching each week’s cold open that precedes the credits for “Saturday Night Live.” For more than three years, its mainstay has been to heap ridicule on President Trump. Last weekend, SNL widened its net to capture Britain’s Prime Minister.

Briefly but effectively, the comedy troupe skewered Boris Johnson’s failing strategy to put distance between President Trump and ingratiate himself with a global elite that is, undeniably, inimical to Britain’s independence from the European Union.

The skit, set in a high school cafeteria, parodied Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unguarded remarks, during cocktails at the recent NATO summit, concerning Mr. Trump’s overlong pressers. Messrs. Trump and Trudeau are caricatured, along with President Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Britain’s Mr. Johnson.

Unfortunately for him, the American president was not SNL’s sole target. Video clips of Mr. Trudeau’s actual faux-pas simply show Boris Johnson listening intently to the Canadian premier’s account, laughing, along with other world leaders, at antics attendant at any international gathering.

Yet in SNL’s scenario, Mr. Johnson is positively gleeful in being part of the global “in-crowd” poking fun at Mr. Trump (a too-seductive temptation for conservatives in politics, academia, and the broadcast press.) Nor is SNL wholly wrong in its depiction of the on-again, off-again bromance between the US-UK leaders.

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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: What Would Sisyphus Do?

Please see my wire from mid-week as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: What Would Sisyphus Do?’:

Brexiteers anxious to spread the good news of independence cannot deny that theirs has been an uphill battle. Sisyphus, the mythical Greek cursed to push a gigantic boulder up a mountain, has been their avatar; no sooner is the summit reached but that the burden rolls back to the bottom, forcing Sisyphus to resume his labors. Such is the cause of British independence.

Nothing so exemplifies Britons’ indifference to freedom than the drift of the election to be decided Thursday. It is fatuous to relate the sins of the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties and a host of minor political entities. All are allergic to the idea of Britain striking out as an independent sovereign nation once more, working cooperatively with the European Union but no longer subservient to an EU mandarinate held accountable to no democratic body and overseen, indulgently, by the European Court of Justice.

Instead, one looks with sorrow upon two parties who took up the Brexit cause as their own but are no less wanting. “To whom much is given, much shall be required.” Conservatives, presumably, champion limited government, free enterprise, and individual responsibility. While it would be impolitic to question the patriotism of any political party, few would doubt that Tories are synonymous with “Queen and Country” and the good old Union Jack.

Conservatives, again, gave, albeit half-heartedly, Britons the 2016 referendum that voted to exit the EU. From this point forward, Tories have far less to cheer. Governments led by Theresa May and Boris Johnson have had lacklustre deals frustrated by obstreperous parliamentarians. Nor has the general election energized an upsurge for independence.

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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: Once More into the Blamed Breach

Please see my wire from earlier this week as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: Once More into the Blamed Breach’:

Given the political roller-coaster ride the cause of British independence has endured for most of 2019, these several weeks of politicking before Thursday’s general election have been anticlimactic. Like most electoral campaigns, parties vie to outdo one another with promises of bounty. Conservative or Labour — with minor parties joining in — merely prepare the final bill to future taxpayers. The one difference, of course, is the fate of Brexit.

Prime Minister Johnson criss-crosses the country to the mantra “Get Brexit Done.” His leading challenger, Labourite Jeremy Corbyn, vows to renegotiate Mr. Johnson’s agreement with the European Union and then, remarkably, campaign in a second referendum to remain. Other party heads are pledged either to such a referendum “do-over” or cancelling the Article 50 exit outright. With only a handful of seats at stake for them, they have little to lose; they gamble that more outrageous platforms will stand out.

The one outlier is Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party. Kudos to Mr. Farage for making during the 1990s the UK Independence Party the pre-eminent voice for British sovereignty. That culminated in a Conservative premier, David Cameron, calling for a referendum in 2016 to placate Eurosceptic Tories. When Mr. Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, failed to deliver the referendum decision to leave the EU earlier this year, Mr. Farage formed the Brexit Party.

After the party’s singular success in the European parliamentary elections in the spring and amid anti-Brexit mayhem in Parliament — principally to the charge that Mr. Johnson’s deal is little better than Mrs. May’s agreement — Mr. Farage vowed to take his party to the polls for a “clean break Brexit.”

At first, the Brexit Party aimed to field candidates in all 650 constituencies. When fears mounted that, by challenging Conservative incumbents, Mr. Farage risked giving Remainers control of the House of Commons, he reversed himself and conceded Tory safe seats.

Yet even this strategy came under fire this weekend, when a number of leading Brexit MEPs criticized this concession as a continuing risk, by weakening Conservative challengers to Labour seats. They argued this reversed a previous commitment of contesting only constituencies where Tories were demonstrably weaker than Brexit Party candidates. Instead these Brexit MEPs urged electors to forsake Mr. Farage, marshal the independence movement behind one party, and vote Conservative.

The reasons are two-fold.

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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: What Would Patrick Henry Do?

Please see my mid-November wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: What Would Patrick Henry Do?’:

With the British general election having only just begun, it would be precipitate for champions of UK independence to bemoan, “Brexit, we hardly knew ye.” Yet as events continue to unfold, it is difficult to maintain the requisite “stiff upper lip” until December 12.

One need look no further for ominous signs ahead than when Prime Minister Johnson went to Buckingham Palace last Wednesday to request the dropping of the writs. “I’ve just been to see Her Majesty the Queen,” Boris announced outside No 10, “and she agreed to dissolve Parliament for an election.”

Yet a BBC reporter outside the Palace confidently told viewers that Mr. Johnson had gone “to inform” the Queen that Parliament was dissolved, as that’s how things are now done. First, the UK Supreme Court overruling the Queen’s prorogation of Parliament in September; and now, a member of the press assuring us that dissolution was no longer among her prerogative powers, either.

So who does rule in the United Kingdom? This question is at the core of the election campaign, as at the heart of Brexit. Since Prime Minister Theresa May brought her Brexit legislation before the Commons a year ago, MPs have been hell-bent on frustrating the people’s will, expressed in the 2016 referendum, to leave the European Union. Boris Johnson called that June 23 Britain’s “Independence Day,” but in reality it’s been more John Dickinson than John Adams.

America’s Founders pledged in their famous document “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Like Mr. Dickinson who counselled that the time was not yet ripe for the colonies to separate from Britain, the Conservative government is falling back on a weak deal. As many Brexiteers revile it as revere it, as the answer to secession from the EU.

Prime Minister Johnson proclaims it, yet that fails to soothe sceptics, who fear it as not worth the parchment upon which it is written.

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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.