On the Record | Brexit Success Will Inspire Envy for EU

Please see my February 10^th wire for The American Spectator, ‘Brexit Success Will Inspire Envy for EU’:

There is a dayspring in the history of this nation, which perhaps those only who are on the mountaintops can as yet recognize,” Benjamin Disraeli wrote of England. “You deem you are in darkness, and I see a dawn.”

Since January 31, when Britain regained political independence from the European Union, Brexiteers occupy those “dizzying” heights as they contemplate the potential before them. Opponents of breaking free from the bonds of Brussels, meanwhile, remain very much in the dark. For them, it is not the dawn of a new day but the sunset of their hopes to partake of a Euro superstate.

Premier Boris Johnson rallied the nation from 10 Downing Street. “This is not the end, but a beginning,” he said. (Who now denies that Johnson is the heir to Disraeli?) “This is the moment that the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act in our great national drama,” Johnson enthused, “a moment of real national renewal and change.” Echoing Disraeli, the prime minister promised, “This is the dawn of a new era.”

The work of Brexit is only just begun. Britain remains in a “transition” period, still under EU partial jurisdiction until the end of the year, when it successfully negotiates a trade agreement with its former EU colleagues or strikes forth on a “clean break” Brexit and trades with the EU on World Trade Organization rules.

For all Johnson’s optimism, the prospects of arriving at amiable terms with the EU are grim. Its leaders are demanding “alignment” on matters of trade and regulations, and a “level playing field” with respect to UK’s future taxation and welfare policies. Brussels’ aim is to curtail any economic advantages that cutting taxes and regulations may give to Britain, while simultaneously slipping in a “poison pill” to kill off UK trade agreements on the global stage, principally with America.

Britain, regardless, should consider itself lucky. EU leaders are planning worse to come for the remaining EU-27 member countries.

Read more . . .

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 | Brexit — Boris lands in same trap as Mrs. May

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: Boris lands in same trap as Mrs. May’:

Let’s not beat about the pumpkin. The United Kingdom’s latest withdrawal agreement with the European Union is a disappointing deal. It fails to deliver Brexit. It is arguably a worse agreement than Prime Minister May’s flawed document. Her successor as premier, Boris Johnson, despite all his avowed “do or die” rhetoric, has failed to deliver on the 2016 referendum mandate for Britain to exit the EU and to regain its independence.

Nor can there be any doubt on the motivations of anti-Brexit sentiment. A contingent of Remainers — in Parliament, the broadcast press, and the political elite — make a mockery of the people’s decision to leave and are willing to employ any excuse to frustrate democracy, preferring to get their marching orders from Brussels.

Mr. Johnson’s agreement went before the House of Commons today for approval, mere hours before he is required by Hilary Benn’s “surrender” act to send a letter to Brussels requesting another delay if Britain did not secure a deal, approved by Parliament, by the end of October 19. Never mind that EU officials ruled out any extension after negotiations ended this week.

Parliament did not approve — ostensibly on the basis that it wanted more time to scrutinize the deal and to ensure that enabling legislation was in place. As required by law, the Prime Minister dispatched a “request for an extension” letter — unsigned — to Brussels. A second signed letter soon followed, to the President of the EU Council, Donald Tusk.

“While it is open to the European Council to accede to the request [for an alternative extension period] mandated by Parliament,” Mr. Johnson explained to Mr. Tusk, “I have made clear since becoming Prime Minister . . . that a further extension would damage the interests of the UK and our EU partners.” To wit: “We must bring this process to a conclusion.”

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 | Happy Brexit Day, Despite the Wait

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Happy Brexit Day, Despite the Wait’:

Your Diarist would be amiss were he not to wish, all and sundry, a happy “Independence Day.”

Doubtless you think either I’m having an “episode” or it’s already the Fourth of July (after the speediest fortnight in history). Well, I can assure you that we’re still in the last quarter of June.

No, I bring glad tidings on the third anniversary of Britain’s 2016 referendum vote to exit the European Union. Huzzah! If Britain and America are divided by a common language, how does one say “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in London?

The historic occasion sneaks upon even the most earnest Brexiteer almost as an afterthought. That speaks to what supporters of Britain’s independence have endured, for the past 36 months, from the machinations of the European Union.

Boris Johnson, now a leading contender to become the next Conservative leader and British prime minister, coined the “Independence Day” Brexit shorthand during the lead-up to the referendum, in which he made a huge contribution.

Until he stepped into the van, the pro-independence faction was largely about the faults of membership in the EU — the costs, the interference, the open border. It was Mr. Johnson who focused on the “sunny uplands” of liberty.

Yuuuge, as Mr. Trump might say.

At the time, it is easy to see how idealists would identify with the Second Continental Congress and the 56 delegates sweltering in the Philadelphian heat that July 1776.

The Founders were debating the merits of Richard Henry Lee’s Virginia resolution, that these thirteen “United Colonies” declare themselves “free and independent states . . . absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,” with “all political connection . . . totally dissolved.”

Two and a half centuries later and with the shoes on different feet, the ensuing realities disclose that the Brexit euphoria was premature.

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 | Britain’s Best Hope for Independence Is Running Down the Clock to Brexit Day

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Britain’s Best Hope for Independence Is Running Down the Clock to Brexit Day’:

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” How Brexiteers must regret that Britain did not heed the hard lessons the European Union teaches its recalcitrant members, and struck hard for WTO Brexit as soon as giving notice to Brussels that it intended to withdraw. Upon reflection, it may have been inevitable that regardless of its actions, Britain would stand in its present relation with the EU: with no deal, mounting ill-will and bad blood on both sides of the English Channel as the deadline nears, and rising despair for the future of an independent Britain.

Perhaps, as per Article 50 of the “Treaty of European Union,” Brussels would have dragged its feet on immediately concluding a withdrawal agreement along WTO guidelines, arguing the letter of the law: that “the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.”

In this scenario, an exit alternative as laid out by law would come to pass — “failing that, two years after the notification” from the withdrawing State — as now appears to be the case.

What must also be clear, certainly to all who want to honor the Brexit referendum, is that asking the EU to extend the Article 50 deadline is a mug’s game. If the UK and EU have not been able to agree withdrawal on equitable terms by now, they never will.

Only those who push back against withdrawal hold out the false promise of a deal, just around the corner, “just give us more time.” There will never be time enough for Leavers and Remainers to come to an amicable understanding, let alone the UK and EU to arrive at a win-win situation.

Read more . . .

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 | To Hell and Back: Brexit Undaunted by Europe’s Jibes

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘To Hell and Back: Brexit Undaunted by Europe’s Jibes’:

The United Kingdom’s efforts to exit the European Union are going to hell. “In a handbasket,” Napoleon would doubtless mutter, he the French autocrat who disparaged his British conqueror as nothing but “a nation of shopkeepers.” The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, probably agrees. Neither Britons nor shopkeepers — free enterprisers of any sort — earn any respect from Brussels mandarins.

Like Napoleon, Mr. Tusk and his camarilla have plans for European hegemony and putting Britain in its place. “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like,” he mused on Twitter, “for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”

“Well, I doubt Lucifer would welcome them,” piped up the EU’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt. His beef was that after what those who promoted Brexit in Britain, they would even manage to divide hell.

Witty.

But like the Church Militant, Brexiteers are hitting back. Jacob Rees-Mogg replied that Mr. Tusk’s slur “shows exactly why the British people rejected the EU in the first place.”

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 | Brexit Beckons the Courage of Thomas Paine

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit Beckons the Courage of Thomas Paine’:

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” So Thomas Paine consoled revolutionary America, when hopes of independence seemed dashed by circumstance. He expounded his revolutionary politics in England, too, a plaque at the White Hart Hotel at Lewes, East Sussex, reminds. Today, as Britain revolts against EU membership and for its own independence, Paine’s words bring it home. Brexit hangs in the balance as the scales weigh the uncertain benefits of withdrawing on terms dictated by Europe or striking out at the appointed hour minus them, without regret.

No contest, I say. To quote Disraeli: “Departures should be sudden.”

In the 2016 referendum, the choice before Britons was stark. Whether, on the one hand, to leave the European Union and regain the marks of sovereignty and self-government or, on the other hand, to remain in the EU and see their laws subservient to a foreign court, their acts of parliament subject to the approval of unelected EU bureaucrats.

The people opted for independence. Yet their Brexit vote is being frustrated by insiders who deride it, lament it, abhor it. Either by a political class with a share in EU control, who do not want their power curtailed. Or business interests with a financial stake in trade according to EU regulations — “crony continentalism” — and fear selling their wares in the competition of free markets.

Or ordinary citizens, who have lived so long under the paternalism of the EU that they want for the confidence that independence engenders and the self-respect that is the reward of self-rule. Brexit’s troubles are compounded by politicians who do not believe in it and do not want it; who promote it publicly but do all within their power to frustrate and despoil the vote for freedom.

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 | Paine the Economic Royalist

Please see my first article for the American Thinker, ‘Paine the Economic Royalist’:

The foibles of most public men are unearthed while they walk among us. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” But revisionism makes history its palimpsest. Heroic pamphleteer Thomas Paine is but the latest of the Founding generation laid low by this twenty-first-century zeitgeist.

His sin? Paine was a bimetallist who believed in commodity currency -- gold or silver. Honored in his time, today’s establishment would have the New Rochelle revolutionary tarred-and-feathered for his heterodoxy.

Paine’s motivation for writing Dissertations in the mid-1780s was a Pennsylvanian banking bill and the rivalry it spawned: one bank with notes guaranteed by specie versus another with no guarantee other than legal tender laws, which he reasoned belied the currency’s worthlessness and “calculated to support fraud and oppression.”

“Nature has provided the proper materials for money, gold and silver, and any attempt of ours to rival her is ridiculous,” Paine wrote; they were “the emissions of nature: paper is the emission of art.”

Read more…

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My thanks to the editors at the American Thinker.