On the Record | Brexit: Boris Becomes Charlie Brown

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: Boris Becomes Charlie Brown’:

For a workable Brexit analogy, think Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. Try as he might, Charlie is never given a chance to kick the pigskin. Every time he comes close, Lucy snatches away the ball, leaving our protagonist to tumble on his backside. You’d think someone would come to Charlie’s defense and call Lucy out, but no one does.

The British government’s inability to advance on securing the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union was never more in evidence than today [October 22^nd] in the House of Commons. MPs toying with the fate of independence did Lucy proud. Their contempt for the Charlie Browns of Brexit Britain, came into focus as an ignoble spectacle.

Charlie Brown portrays the “everyman,” and he is every Briton — some 17.4 million — who voted in 2016 to exit the EU. Lucy represents those dissembling Remainer MPs who vehemently stand up for the rights of the people but at the moment of action, frustrate the democratic will. As for those who let this travesty continue, count the avatars.

They include the anti-Brexiteers in Brussels. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. The UK Supreme Court, who are silent when the rules of parliamentary justice are trampled upon, provided their collective EU super-state aims are met. The press is crawling with these avatars of the Remainer movement, manufacturing new objections at every juncture.

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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 | Rule Britannia: Where’s the Nelson of Independence?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Rule Britannia — Where’s the Nelson of Independence?’:

As opposing fleets of British and French-allied ships of war lined up for battle off the Cape of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson ordered a signal to be raised from his flag-ship, H.M.S. Victory: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”

Britons expect similar devotion to duty from their elected representatives. Given the choice in 2016 whether to remain or leave the European Union, a clear majority voted to exit and restore Britain’s independence. More than three years later, they are still waiting, as MPs and elites enthralled by the allure of the EU super-state frustrate the voice of democracy.

Last week Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned from Brussels with a much-heralded UK-EU withdrawal deal. Yet when it was brought before the House of Commons on Saturday for approval, Remainer MPs decided instead to postpone the vote, opting for Sir Oliver Letwin’s amendment to forgo judgement until enabling legislation was passed (MPs fearing the Government had constructed a Trojan Horse by which to abandon its own legislation and “crash out” of the EU).

This procedure clearly put the cart before the horse — ensuring the workings of a law that does not yet exist— as anti-Brexiteers will resort to any tactic to frustrate British independence.

Not that adherents of independence should take undue umbrage. For Boris’s deal is nothing more than “Brino” — Brexit in name only — Brexit under false colors, as Admiral Nelson would assess it. Brexiteers are tired of living under the “affected” authority of the EU’s gold-stars-on-a-field-of-blue pennant. They yearn to restore sovereignty to a nation over which proudly flies the historic Union Jack.

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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 — 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.”

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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: What Would Odysseus Do?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: What Would Odysseus Do?’:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Classical scholar while a student at Oxford, may be thinking of Odysseus and his men who, homeward bound after their exploits at Troy, must navigate their ship between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis — a six-headed sea monster and whirlpool, respectively — that threaten their destruction.

Even more gruesomely, Mr. Johnson, at the helm of the ship of state, must extricate his ministry from a constitutional dilemma, on Britain’s course for independence from the European Union.

Mere weeks before the UK is legislated to leave the EU, Brexit opponents have devised a Greek tragedy to stymie the Government. Remainers passed a motion allowing them to take over the “order paper,” effectively giving them control of parliamentary business. Their objective? To bring a bill before the Prime Minister, forbidding Britain to leave the EU on WTO terms, if he is unable to negotiate a successful trade deal before the October deadline.

Such is only the official rationale to stop “No Deal,” though. Don’t be fooled. The ultimate goal is to keep Britain ensnared in Brussels’ grip, through a withdrawal agreement that keeps it bound to regulatory and judicial fiat. Better yet, to annul Article 50 altogether and keep the UK within the EU, voiding the 2016 referendum to exit.

Adding insult to injury, Mr. Johnson cannot call for a general election to give him a fresh mandate. Never mind that he is leading in the polls. Legislation enacted in 2011, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, requires a two-thirds vote in the Commons for the prime minister to request the Crown to “drop the writs.” So the Government faces the prospect of being legally mandated to go to Brussels to request an extension without being able to call for an election to avoid this humiliation.

Boris confronts the Brexit version of Scylla and Charybdis.

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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 | Contra the Remainers, Britons’ Right to Liberty Justifies Brexit

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Contra the Remainers, Britons’ Right to Liberty Justifies Brexit’:

British parliamentarians returning to work this week will be thrust immediately back into the Brexit fray. Tempus fugit, as the Romans say, and with the October 31 deadline for leaving the European Union mere weeks away, there’s no time to lose in the debate over whether or not Britain will achieve its independence.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to ask Elizabeth II to prorogue Parliament from September 11 (the likely start date) to the Queen’s Speech on October 14, so as to clear the political calendar for domestic business, has excited the expected howls of protest. But as Westminster was scheduled to be in recess anyway for the parties to hold their annual autumn conferences, it is likely no more than four or five days will be lost to Brexit mayhem.

No matter. While anti-Brexiteers outside Parliament are searching for ways to stop Boris’s prorogation — an unlikely event, given conventions dealing with royal prerogatives and the unwillingness of the judiciary to cross the line into the jurisdiction of the purely political — inside Parliament the usual suspects are preparing legislation to force the Government, in lieu of reaching a withdrawal deal, to ask the EU for yet another extension to the end of January 2020.

If anti-Brexiteers are successful in passing legislation forbidding Britain to leave on WTO terms — “No Deal” — what is the Government to do? MPs critical of Brexit plead they act in the spirit of British democracy. They are wrong. Their machinations in favor of the EU are in direct defiance of the people’s referendum vote three years ago to exit.

These shenanigans in the House of Commons pervert its historic role to hold the Executive to account, whether in the form of an “absolute” monarch or a prime minister leading a cabinet government. But the aim of the Commons has never been to usurp and abrogate authority to itself in defiance of the party in power.

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Remarks are welcome on DMI’s Facebook page.

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My thanks to editor Wlady Pleszczynski of The American Spectator.