On the Record | Ghost of EU Superstate Haunts Britain’s Path to Independence

Please see my latest wire for The American Spectator, ‘Ghost of EU Superstate Haunts Britain’s Path to Independence’:

Another Christmas has come and gone. The season of Santa Claus and for remembering the birth in Bethlehem of a small child, heralded by angels proclaiming Him the “Prince of Peace.” And, not to be outdone by Halloween, of ghosts. For who can forget Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” and its story of the scrimping Ebenezer Scrooge? Cold-hearted and tight-fisted, he is visited by reforming Ghosts of Yuletides past, present, and future. Scrooge is redeemed, and sets out on a path of personal and public approbation. The tale is no less apropos for British prime minister Boris Johnson, preparing to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union. The EU has become the specter haunting Brexit.

The phantom menacing Britain is the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who in a recent essay shares his vision of the future relationship. Mr. Barnier begins by expressing regret at Britain’s determination to exit but, in a spirit of equanimity and good will, looks forward to the “opportunity to forge a new UK-EU partnership.” Taking a page from former premier Theresa May, he reiterates that though the “UK may be leaving the EU … it is not leaving Europe.”

Instead, Mr. Barnier outlines three areas of mutual interest. One such step will be “to work together and discuss joint solutions to global challenges.” Another, “to build a close security relationship.” Can anyone contend against these aspirations? Britain pursues its international agenda with myriad intergovernmental agencies, be it the United Nations, NATO, or World Trade Organization. No serious impediments exist from extending its collaborative reach to former colleagues in the EU.

Mr. Barnier’s third area for cooperation, however, sets the cat among the pigeons.

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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.

On the Record | Elizabeth II, in Christmas Speech, Fails to Say ‘Brexit’

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Elizabeth II, in Christmas Speech, Fails to Say “Brexit” ’:

What is to be made of the fact that the British monarch failed in her Christmas address — the sixty-eighth of her long reign — failed to mention the fact that the United Kingdom of which she is the sovereign is about to end its membership in the European Union and become truly independent once again? It is, after all, far and away the most important development for Britain in the year Her Majesty is reviewing for the holiday. Is there method to her silence on this head?

The question invites reflection because seldom can Elizabeth speak so freely, as she can in her Christmas speech, to her subjects in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, including men and women of good cheer around the globe. Her grandfather, George V, began the tradition in 1932, when he used the wireless to reach out to the farthest corners of the British Empire upon which, went the boast, “the sun never set.”

Now, the Queen sends season’s greetings via radio, television, and the world wide web. The Christmas broadcast is Her Majesty’s royal review of the year just past and appraisal of the year to come. In 2019 — as for much of the last three years — top of mind has been the fate of Britain’s independence from the European Union. As Elizabeth surveys the receding twelvemonth, she characteristically eschews hyperbole, merely calling its consequences “quite bumpy.”

Come the end of January — barring catastrophe — the UK will at long last leave the EU. It might seem only natural that the Queen, as Head of State, should want to address the effects of Brexit upon her people. Yet nowhere does she mention it directly, nor, for that matter, any political development — whether it be December’s General Election or the summer appointment of her fifteenth prime minister, Boris Johnson, during her 67-year reign (beginning with Sir Winston Churchill).

Not a word about Brexit. In part Her Majesty’s reticence is due to constitutional convention, in which the Crown forsakes the grubby details of politics to the government, rising above the fray and serving as an unbiased sovereign for all. Nor can one imagine that the Brexit path is one on which the Queen would be eager to tread, so stressful are relations between Leavers and Remainers. The acrimony arising from the election, the culmination of years of recriminations, suggests that few want Brexit to intrude upon festivities of Christmas and Chanukah.

We mere commoners, though, may spare a thought as we stare at the Yule log blazing on the hearth or the Chanukah candles, for what the Queen herself thinks of Brexit.

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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 | 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.

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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 | The Queen Backs Brexit, After All

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘The Queen Backs Brexit, After All’:

“My Government’s priority is to deliver the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on 31 January,” Her Majesty intoned at the State Opening of Parliament. “My Ministers will bring forward legislation to ensure the United Kingdom’s exit on that date and to make the most of the opportunities that this brings for all the people of the United Kingdom.”

Elizabeth II vowed that her Government would “seek a future relationship with the European Union based on a free trade agreement that benefits the whole of the United Kingdom.” Then, with an eye to America and other national markets, she announced they will also “begin trade negotiations with other leading global economies.”

No doubt, Her Majesty reflected, she’s said all this before. Still, her kingdom remains tethered, inexplicably, to the EU. What’s changed? Boris Johnson is prime minister, now with a majority parliament standing foursquare behind him and Brexit.

The Queen’s Speech is a yearly overview of the government’s agenda, presenting in broad brushstrokes its objectives in office; sometimes even coinciding, wits whisper, with electoral manifestos. Such laundry lists of pending legislation can range from the transformational, like the UK seceding from EU membership, to the mundane, as when the Queen announced reviewing “hospital car parking charges.”

Like any political document, the speech has its share of boilerplate, whether it be “an ambitious program of domestic reform,” a commitment “to invest in our gallant Armed Forces,” or a promise “to promote and expand” the UK’s “influence in the world.” No constituency is left untouched, whether it be health, education, social care, crime, or the environment. Such are the demands and expectations of modern participatory democracy.

Conservative governments are not exempt from the spending spree, even when they should know better. Such as when Boris Johnson’s ministry pledges to increase the “national living wage,” regardless of whether it benefits the poor.

Theory demonstrates that minimum wage policies put people out of work — usually the marginal worker and those new to the workforce — without the experience or seniority to climb the employment ladder. Statistics bear this out, too, here in the Northeast and on the Coast where restaurant workers are particularly vulnerable to “virtue signalling.”

Likewise with climate change strategy. Pity the Queen for having to assert that Her Government will “take steps to meet the world-leading target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050” — heedless of the hardships this creates. The UK petroleum industry is exposed to opprobrium, manufacturing will meet increasing energy expenditures (eventually conveyed to consumers), and Britons will brave rising heating bills. Need one add that the “consensus” on climate change, calling forth these measures, has challengers?

Greater consensus will coalesce around Mr. Johnson’s efforts to “invest in the country’s public services and infrastructure,” while simultaneously “keeping borrowing and debt under control.” Conservatives keen to the failures of Keynesian deficit spending will wince at their party’s abandonment of Margaret Thatcher’s focus on economy, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge for “the sustainability of the public finances through a responsible fiscal strategy.”

On this head, Brexit is the secret weapon for economic growth.

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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 | 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 . . .

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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.