Please see my January 28th wire for The American Spectator, ‘Post-Brexit, Whither the EU?’:
As in any divorce, attention is focused upon the agitator for break-up. What led to the severing of cordial relations? Why are resolution and compromise no longer options to explore? How will our “hero” fare once separation is accomplished and independence is regained? In the Brexit scenario, Britain is the protagonist, and the British people the triumphant participants in the divorce proceedings. But what of the losing side in this severing act? Whither the European Union?Soon-to-be ex-MEP Anne Widdecombe offers her colleagues in the EU orbit some parting advice. The original “vision” of a “loose alliance of sovereign nations in a trading agreement with some sort of political co-operation” was a “noble ideal” that, had it been upheld and honored, she doubts that “Britain would now be leaving.”
Such was not to be, however. “Co-operation morphed into domination,” she laments, and “sovereignty morphed into a superstate.” With no hope of restoring the independence of states within the Union, she reasons, “Britain is going.” Nor will the UK be the first, Widdecombe warns: “I believe when we make a big success of being a competitor on your doorstep, others will follow us.”
Not all EU critics are so pessimistic. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán praises Boris Johnson and the Brexit outcome. All were against the British premier, Orbán told a press conference in Budapest — “the liberal-leftist media, the global Soros network and all the tools of the pro-remain EU” — but Johnson and the British people persevered, and “have opened this vast door of opportunities for themselves.” Hungary’s PM may be a bit envious when he said, “I’m sure there is a success story that will be written there.”
For the moment, though, Orbán is not angling to ditch the EU himself. Instead, as Breitbart London reports, Hungary “supports bringing Serbia” and similar states into the Continental union, hoping it will align with Hungary and its “conservative-minded allies in the Visegrad group” — Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland — to transform the “bloc into an alliance of sovereign nation-states, rather than a nascent federal union along U.S. lines.”
Thus are we presented with two possible models for a future EU: either decentralize, return local powers to member nations, and simply focus on areas of mutual benefit; or ignore the popular protests against Brussels’ grasping for ever more power, finally coming to fruition in Britain and now building up in the remaining E-27 members, whether that be France, Italy, or Spain.
Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.
My thanks to editor Wlady Pleszczynski of The American Spectator.
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