On the Record | Political Bonus for Early U.S.–UK Trade Negotiations

Please see my February 4^th wire for The American Spectator, ‘Political Bonus for Early U.S.–UK Trade Negotiations’:

America and Britain are on the cusp of a conservative revolution, if only their leaders have the courage to take action and the foresight to see the potential that lies before them. Of the people, there is no need to ask: The people are ready, “mouldering on the vine” (to paraphrase the musical “1776”), “for want of it.” Only those enriched by state emoluments stand opposed, poised to squelch any serious efforts to upend the status quo. So patriots beware.

President Trump’s impeachment in the U.S. Senate, for actions that warrant little more than censure (or less), is a distraction, a ploy to depress supporters’ resolve. Meanwhile, however much Britons may welcome repose after their exertions on behalf of Brexit, this is not the time to rest on their oars.

Now is the time to act. Britain’s post-election momentum, following Boris Johnson’s December win of a majority parliament, cannot dissipate. America is already in pre-election mode, with President Trump already rallying supporters to “keep America great.” Both countries must strike out to finish the job of returning power to the people.

Decentralizing power away from Washington and Westminster does more than simply return responsibility to legitimate spheres of action. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Those that are re-empowered — whether the states, communities, or individuals themselves — become active collaborators, enabling a dynamic element that strengthens local autonomy and perpetuates its hold over popular imagination and initiative.

“There is nothing more important for those who think they believe in freedom, in free enterprise and in private property,” Murray Rothbard realized, “than bringing these high-flown generalities to bear on the concrete problems of their daily lives.”

That the revolt against over-government is rising, simultaneously, in the United Kingdom and the United States, is no coincidence. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were collaborators in a revolutionary movement toward minimal government and personal freedom. Disciples are undaunted, half a century later.

In June 2016, their paths converged again. Donald Trump was set to become the Republican presidential nominee when a majority of Britons (17.4 million) cast ballots in the EU referendum to exit.

Once more, opponents of the popular mandate set out to frustrate efforts to scale back government intrusion. And, in fairness, U.S.–UK leaders who were elected to bring power back to the people have let themselves get caught up in their adversaries’ tactics and allowed precious time to lapse. They can redeem themselves, but they need focus. A game plan going forward is imperative.

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 | Post-Brexit, British Government Must Allow Entrepreneurs to ‘Boost Themselves’

Please see my February 1^st wire for The American Spectator, ‘Post-Brexit, British Government Must Allow Entrepreneurs to “Boost Themselves” ’:

This weekend, Britain regains its independence from membership in the European Union. After four long years of setbacks, frustrations, and calumny from Remainers in Parliament, think tanks, and the broadcast media, Britons will finally see their 2016 referendum vote to exit the EU vindicated. Cheers are certainly warranted, but don’t pop the champagne corks just yet. We are not at “the beginning of the end” of Brexit, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, but just at “the end of the beginning.”

The Conservative government must now set to business negotiating a free trade agreement with its Continental neighbors. Brussels has already thrown down the gauntlet. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says there must be “trade-offs” for a successful treaty to be signed, while the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier calls for “any free-trade agreement must provide for a level playing field on standards, state aid, and tax matters.” Otherwise, Britain sees its negotiating efforts come to naught.

Though naysayers disagree, remaining tethered to EU regulations — to be adjudicated by the European Court of Justice — is hardly what Britons have in mind. They know what they were signing up for from the start; in this respect only are they “Remainers,” as they cast their votes resoundingly for Brexit (again) and Boris Johnson last December.

So what is the prime minister to do? Johnson himself leaves no doubt on where he stands, stating repeatedly that he will sign a free trade deal with Brussels by the end of this year. EU bureaucrats bemoan a “quick and easy” agreement as unrealistic. The only alternative recourse for Britain is to conclude a “clean break” Brexit. Concessions, beyond those made in good faith and on equal terms, are unthinkable.

Johnson must stick to his guns. He should know by now that EU objectives are only partially economic, if that. There’s more than a hint of rumor that EU officials are as much for sabotaging British enterprise as for frictionless trade with their erstwhile UK partner. Sending a political message to the remaining EU-27, several with robust independence insurgents — France, Italy, and Spain are experiencing populist unrest — is a priority on the EU agenda.

The French are particularly pernicious on this front. France’s Europe minister, Amélie de Montchalin, asserts openly that the demands for alignment are attempts to forestall “a tax haven at the gates of Europe.” Pity. The Gallic mind had once lauded British commercial acumen. “England is said to traffic in everything,” Napoleon once declared. “I should advise her to sell liberty, for which she could get a high price, and without any fear of exhausting her stock.”

Free trade in the ideas of liberty, economic and political, is just what the EU didn’t order from the nation of shopkeepers. No reason, however, why Britain should deny herself the privilege. Brexit trade success, however, will require the government to think less like public servants and more like entrepreneurs. Is it possible?

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 | Brexiteers Don’t Want Democracy; They Want Freedom

Please see my January 30^th wire for The American Spectator, ‘Brexiteers Don’t Want Democracy; They Want Freedom’:

When the United Kingdom exits the European Union late on Friday, Brexit will be hailed as a victory for British democracy. Three times Britons voted to leave the EU and “take back control”: in June 2016, when the Leave campaign won at the EU referendum; in the general election the following June, when the vast majority of voters cast ballots for parties promising to fulfill the referendum will of the people (even though the Conservative party itself only achieved a minority government); and finally in December 2019 — the second general election in as many years — after months and months of Remainer parliamentary obstruction, Britons overwhelming elected Boris Johnson on the pledge to “get Brexit done.” Third time’s the charm.

But is this really a victory for democracy? Yes, on the face of it, if by democracy you mean one person, one vote. On the other hand, Britons were subjected, figuratively and literally, to months of their elected representatives in the House of Commons hell-bent on frustrating that self-same will, all in the name of parliamentary democracy.

The prime minister and no less than Elizabeth II, fulfilling their legitimate constitutional powers to prorogue Parliament, were vetoed by an unaccountable UK Supreme Court, “miraculously” imbued with the ability to augur that the Head of State and her First Minister were motivated by malevolent intent against democracy. Thus vetoed, Boris Johnson was forced to return to the Commons, cap in hand, to the repellent glee of Remainers. Brexiteers were rightfully outraged, while the establishment was unconvincingly nonplussed. They hear “the fury in your words, but not your words,” to summon up Shakespeare.

What is it about democracy that Brexiteers dislike? Most would never put the question so bluntly and, if queried, would proclaim themselves the most proud and patriotic democrats in all of England. Except … Why do politicians and more perniciously, “public” servants, put their interests above those whom they have sworn to serve?

Were justification required, we could put the blame on Edmund Burke, who infamously told his Bristol electors that MPs “owe you, not his industry only, but his judgment.” Furthermore, “he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion,” Burke protested.

Burke’s political nostrum, however, had its limits even in his own day, let alone in ours. In truth, we need go no further than to admit that public officials are usually no more “public-spirited” than the general run of the populace. Perhaps even less so.

Brexiteers who are fully committed to British independence don’t stop at limiting the power of Brussels. They’ll extend it to Westminster, too.

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 | Post-Brexit, Whither the EU?

Please see my January 28^th wire for The American Spectator, ‘Post-Brexit, Whither the EU?’:

As in any divorce, attention is focused upon the agitator for break-up. What led to the severing of cordial relations? Why are resolution and compromise no longer options to explore? How will our “hero” fare once separation is accomplished and independence is regained? In the Brexit scenario, Britain is the protagonist, and the British people the triumphant participants in the divorce proceedings. But what of the losing side in this severing act? Whither the European Union?

Soon-to-be ex-MEP Anne Widdecombe offers her colleagues in the EU orbit some parting advice. The original “vision” of a “loose alliance of sovereign nations in a trading agreement with some sort of political co-operation” was a “noble ideal” that, had it been upheld and honored, she doubts that “Britain would now be leaving.”

Such was not to be, however. “Co-operation morphed into domination,” she laments, and “sovereignty morphed into a superstate.” With no hope of restoring the independence of states within the Union, she reasons, “Britain is going.” Nor will the UK be the first, Widdecombe warns: “I believe when we make a big success of being a competitor on your doorstep, others will follow us.”

Not all EU critics are so pessimistic. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán praises Boris Johnson and the Brexit outcome. All were against the British premier, Orbán told a press conference in Budapest — “the liberal-leftist media, the global Soros network and all the tools of the pro-remain EU” — but Johnson and the British people persevered, and “have opened this vast door of opportunities for themselves.” Hungary’s PM may be a bit envious when he said, “I’m sure there is a success story that will be written there.”

For the moment, though, Orbán is not angling to ditch the EU himself. Instead, as Breitbart London reports, Hungary “supports bringing Serbia” and similar states into the Continental union, hoping it will align with Hungary and its “conservative-minded allies in the Visegrad group” — Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland — to transform the “bloc into an alliance of sovereign nation-states, rather than a nascent federal union along U.S. lines.”

Thus are we presented with two possible models for a future EU: either decentralize, return local powers to member nations, and simply focus on areas of mutual benefit; or ignore the popular protests against Brussels’ grasping for ever more power, finally coming to fruition in Britain and now building up in the remaining E-27 members, whether that be France, Italy, or Spain.

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 | Beware of Supposing Brexit’s Cause Is Won

Please see my January 27^th wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Beware Of Supposing Brexit’s Cause Is Won’:

“Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is all still gold,” the diarist Horace Walpole wrote as Great Britain won conquest after conquest, at France’s expense, during the final months of the Seven Years’ War. “Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories.”

Yet much to the disappointment of Brexiteers, “Big Ben,” which crowns that iron choir atop the Elizabeth Tower, will “not” sound out at 11 p.m. when the United Kingdom takes its leave of the European Union and regains independence.

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly,” the Anglo-American revolutionary, Thomas Paine, wrote in the opening of “The Crisis.” “ ’Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.”

No one can claim that Brexiteers have had an easy time of it. Eurosceptics exposed the insidious nature of EU membership from the beginning. Prime Minister Thatcher marked the turning point with her “Bruges Speech” of September 1988, in which she famously declared: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

The ups and downs on the road to Brexit are too numerous to count. There was the successful June 2016 referendum to “take back control,” followed by the disastrous premiership of Theresa May, whose decision to go to the polls precipitously in June 2017 nearly ended Brexit. The resulting “Remainer Parliament” was perhaps its worst outcome — second only to Mrs. May’s compromised Withdrawal Agreement. Remainer MPs, meanwhile, kept the Tory Government tied up in knots and subject to the whims of Westminster.

In this dark hour for British independence, arises its paladin premier, Boris Johnson, who on the charge of “getting Brexit done” won electoral victory in December. The promise was that come January 31, the UK would be out of the EU. And so it is about to come to pass.

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.