On the Record | Trump may meet BoJo in Brexit row

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Trump may meet BoJo in Brexit row’:

Could Boris Johnson emerge from the debacle of Chequers to become prime minister of Britain? That is the question following Theresa May’s capitulation, where she committed the government to a soft-Brexit that seems foredoomed to satisfy neither the Remainers or those who want to hold out for the expressed will of Britons for full independence.

Mrs. May’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, was first to resign late Sunday. In his resignation letter, Mr. Davis wrote that he feared “the current trend of policy and tactics is making” leaving the EU customs and regulatory framework “look less and less likely” and that the upshot of Chequers “will be to make the supposed control by Parliament illusory rather than real.”

The foreign secretary made his move the following morning. In his letter taking leave of office, Mr. Johnson feared that the Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.” The government’s position on Brexit, he said, means that Britain is “truly headed for the status of colony,” even before Brussels has made its counter-proposal.

With the Chequers agreement in hand, Mr. Johnson said “the Government now has a song to sing” but, having “practiced the words over the weekend,” he admitted that “they stick in the throat.”

Read more . . .

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

On the Record | Bastille Day equals Brexit Day

Please see my latest post for The Quarterly Review, ‘Bastille Day equals Brexit Day’:

Freedom lovers around the world celebrate Bastille Day (14^th July) in recognition of the rights of man and ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’. As many on the Continent believe, the French Revolution was the pivotal event in the rise of the individual against the entrenched power of the Crown, the aristocratic court, and the privileges of the Roman ‘Gallic’ Church. But the irony is lost by those who fight Britain’s exit from the European Union, particularly the leadership in the devolved regions of Scotland and Wales, whose preference, it seems, is to live under foreign-dominating EU law than the domestic laws of the United Kingdom.

For Brexit minister David Davis, the process is merely procedural. ‘We’re bringing into law 40 years of law. It is putting into British law what was European law. So then, after that, we can change it if we want to,’ Davis told a BBC interviewer. ‘Any material change will be in primary legislation. It’s only technical matters that will go through the statutory instrument and even then the House of Commons will have its say.’ But critics are less accommodating, calling it a ‘naked power grab.’ Most annoyed are leaders of two devolved regions, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon and Carwyn Jones in Wales. They argue that the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns authority from Brussels to Westminster and sidesteps their assemblies, contrary to assurances of co-operation from the Government — which is under no legal obligation to consult them. (Far better for prime minister Tony Blair, during the Westminster devolution period, to have returned more power to the people and rethought the wisdom of setting up additional power centres among the ‘united kingdoms’.)

One cannot help but marvel that this leadership was against Brexit, and now wishes to remain under the EU jurisdiction of the Single Market and Customs Union. But the irony of choosing to live under the European legal yoke would not have been lost on Margaret Thatcher.

Read more . . .

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My thanks to editor Dr Leslie Jones of The Quarterly Review.

On the Record | Supreme Court of Britain Insists That Brexit Vote Goes Through Parliament

Please see my latest wire for The New York Sun, ‘Supreme Court of Britain Insists that Brexit Vote Goes Through Parliament’:

Americans tired of presidential end runs around Congress will sympathize with the Supreme Court ruling out of London that Her Majesty’s Government cannot act alone but must pass legislation in Parliament before triggering Brexit negotiations to leave the European Union.

Following this summer’s referendum vote, Prime Minister May promised to initiate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and begin procedural talks for EU withdrawal. Opponents challenged the government before the High Court in early November, arguing that the executive, by acting unilaterally, was usurping parliamentary sovereignty.

The Government countered that, through executive power based on the royal prerogative and buttressed by the majority vote, its Brexit plans were constitutional. The High Court thought otherwise and ruled against the Government, which in turn appealed to the Supreme Court.

Complications ensued when the constituent countries of the United Kingdom joined in the mid-December hearings, contending that Whitehall diktat threatened the equal prerogatives of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which should have the right to consult on and veto future Brexit developments.

Read more . . .

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