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