The Eleventh Hour

Steyn Online ^ | 31 Jan 2020 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Very shortly, at 11pm Greenwich Mean Time - or midnight in the chancelleries of Europe - the United Kingdom will depart the European Union. This is not the no-deal "hard Brexit" I would have preferred: the Irish backstop is a provocation to sovereignty, and it remains to be seen whether Boris et al will break decisively with regulatory harmony at the end of the year. Furthermore, the Euro-corrosion of many pillars of the state (the judiciary, for example) will take years to reverse.

Nevertheless, de jure Britain is out. And so something the sophisticates said would never happen has come to pass: for the first time ever, a sovereign state that signed up for the European Union has quit it - and a major member of the club at that. The first of many such resignations, one hopes.

The European Parliament chose to mark the occasion with a rather odd rendition of "Auld Lang Syne". Rabbie Burnsian is not an official language of the EU, which may be why the assembled MEPs had to read from the lyric...

[Rummyfan]

Brussels' famous Mannekin Pis, dressed up as a blackface John Bull, bids an inContinental farewell to the United Kingdom

[Jonah Hex]

Looks more like John Bull is telling the EU to piss off...

[Rummyfan]

...the MEPs are taking it better than the BBC, whose three top Brexit headlines at the time of writing are:

500 Attend Pro-EU Meeting in Oxford

'No One Can Be Sure What Brexit Really Means'

London Mayor 'Heartbroken' About Brexit

Whine on, losers.

[hal ogen]

Any time globalists lose is a good time for all.

[rktman]

Oh, are they doing twice since it felt so awesome the first time? LOL! The ‘hole’ “yewwwwww” thing is like joining canaDUH and mexiDOH and the USA together. Uh, no thanks! One world is Pangea.

[Revolutionary]

Italy is next. Then France with a new government. Almost half of their funding will be gone. Germany will follow and total collapse.

[amihow]

Arise American Saxons. Do not take it anymore!

Can you imagine or tolerate a Union of the Americas or a One World Union?

Never, ever give in to slavery.

[Billthedrill]

The notion that the Continent's peoples are basically a bunch of genocidal wackos champing at the bit for a new bloodbath is one I'm not unsympathetic to. But it's a curious rationale to pitch to one's electorate...

Even curiouser, it's been a fairly successful one, a testament to the propaganda power of the ideologically monolithic media. It boils down to "You'll be happier as a European rather than a German because there won't be anyone to invade," and I heard it stated with dismaying earnestness by an otherwise intelligent European guest. Of course, when everyone is a European, including the entire poor population of Africa and the Middle East, nobody is. The bearded fellows who took over Rome from the Romans considered themselves Roman, after all. The bearded fellows currently populating the slums of Malmo or the banlieues of Paris don't even make that concession.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Hopefully our great President and his team have been negotiating a great trade deal with Britain in anticipation of this historic day

[txnativegop]

what do they have that we need? or vice versa?

[A_Former_Democrat]

I don’t know but would you realistically expect there to be no trade agreement between the two countries?

And hasn’t Trump talked about this before?

[txnativegop]

I have never heard Trump mention a trade deal with the UK. Given our history with the UK, a formal trade deal isn’t really necessary is it?

[FLT-bird]

For the Germans in particular, “European” and “EU” allow for substitute nationalism that they need not feel badly about expressing. For others like Belgium it is convenient also since they are a country of two national groups which hate each other’s guts. For the French its a way to try to exercise power they know France by itself doesn’t have a prayer of exercising. I think the eastern Europeans are not in love with the EU at all. They’ll go along with it while refusing to bow down to the more ridiculous demands of France/Germany only for so long as the EU keeps doling out agriculture subsidies and structural funds to them. The Italians and Greeks do not trust themselves to not be corrupt and to practice economic competence.

The latter will be the first ones out because the Euro is strangling their economies. They can no longer engage in currency devaluations like they did in the past to make their goods more competitive. Spain and Portugal will be a step behind Italy and Greece but the dynamics are the same.