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.

Read more . . .

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 | 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 . . .

Read more . . .

Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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