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 | Brexit Backers Need to Seize the Moment

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit Backers Need to Seize the Moment’:

Consequences be damned. With the departure date of March 29 inching ever closer — but 35 days in the future — opponents of Britain’s independence are resorting to drastic measures to stop Brexit. This week, eight Labor MPs resigned the party whips; three Conservative MPs followed, forming an “Independent Group” in Parliament. So why are the paladins of Britain’s freedom blunting their message for independence?

The erstwhile Labor MPs resigned due to dissatisfaction with its leadership. They charge that Jeremy Corbyn is negligent in his duties toward moderate colleagues confronting hostile work environments in Westminster and their constituencies; these beleaguered moderates face deselection at election time. Moreover, they claim a culture of anti-Semitism has taken root in the party since Mr. Corbyn’s time at the helm.

Plus, disgust with Labor policy toward Brexit rankles these party defectors.

As for the Conservatives rebels, their gripes against Prime Minister May include the rise of hard-right Tories within the Party (namely Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group), their own unease over deselection rumors, and the perceived move away from “One Nation Tory” initiatives.

With respect to Labor Party internal discontent, it’s hard to gainsay that there exists reasonable cause for unhappiness. Better to focus instead on the Tory brief. Stated simply, it is disingenuous to suggest that the ERG has “taken over” the Party, given that it could neither cashier Mrs. May, which it tried in December’s leadership challenge, nor give “WTO Brexit” the prominence it deserves.

Also disingenuous are complaints that Mrs. May has backtracked on the spirit, if falling short of realizing specifics, of the most interventionist party manifesto in recent history. As for umbrage that MPs may be challenged in constituency contests for lukewarm support of party ideology, doesn’t the membership deserve candidates who serve them as partisans in Parliament?

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 | A Valentine’s Day Defeat for Theresa May

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘A Valentine’s Day Defeat for Theresa May’:

What a Valentine’s Day in Parliament. One would think Britons have fallen out of love with liberty. This after the Government lost another vote — its tenth, according to BBC bean-counters — on its Brexit agenda. Yet it’s no time to lose heart for those who stand with Britain’s desperate, heroic dash for independence from Europe.

The Government defeat came on a more-or-less status quo motion: To stand by the Withdrawal Agreement, during ongoing lobbying efforts with Brussels to alter the Irish backstop, by inserting binding text introducing a sunset clause or allowing unilateral termination. The EU is rebuffing both overtures.

Government opponents have also been thwarted in their attempts, after voting down Prime Minister May’s withdrawal proposal in January, to derail Brexit. Such ideas as extending Article 50 and postponing the March 29 exit, or holding a second “People’s’ referendum,” or taking Brexit from the Government and giving responsibility to Parliament, or removing the possibility of a “no deal” Brexit.

All have gone nowhere.

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 | 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 | Is Britain Really Going to Leave?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Is Britain Really Going to Leave?’:

“Is Britain really going to leave?” This is the question put to Boris Johnson from people around the world, the former foreign minister informed the House of Commons last night, during debate on the Government’s proposal to withdraw from the European Union.

“Do we really have the courage and the self-belief to deliver what people voted for?” Mr. Johnson pressed. “And to seize the opportunities? Independent, democratic self-government? Real free trade deals?” Will a liberated Britain have the foresight to institute a tax and regulatory regime that incentivizes entrepreneurs and investment, domestic and foreign, based on “laws made in this country and not in Brussels?

“Are we really going to embrace that future?” BoJo asked.

Mr. Johnson is not alone in putting this rhetorical question before his fellow MPs. G.K. Chesterton raised it more than a century ago. Britons, Chesterton wrote, enjoy “a lonely taste in liberty” that “perplex their critics and perplex themselves.” As the United Kingdom grapples with the fate of Brexit, this latest iteration of perplexity is played out before us.

Magna Carta, the charter in which medieval barons exerted their rights against King John, is considered the benchmark of liberty in Britain. “Magna Carta is the greatest constitutional document of all times,” senior judge Lord Denning opined, “the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”

Margaret Thatcher was all in. To a Parisian interviewer who asked during the bicentenary of the Fall of the Bastille, “Are human rights a French invention?,” she replied trenchantly, “No, of course they are not.” The Iron Lady’s riposte to Gallic chauvinism? “We had Magna Carta 1215.”

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.