Posted on 06/17/2016 4:40:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Market Angst as U.K. Edges to Exit," proclaims the headline on The Wall Street Journal's lead story. The exit referred to is Britain's departure from the European Union, a move that will be mandated if a majority votes "leave" rather than "remain" in the national referendum next Thursday.
This outcome would be as astounding, to use the word Lincoln chose to describe the Civil War in his second inaugural address, to British and European financial markets and political insiders as Donald Trump's victory for the Republican nomination has been to their American counterparts.
The most recent polls have shown "leave" gaining ground and leading "remain" among British voters. There is reason to be skeptical about British polls. Pollsters there (with one exception, who flinched and didn't announce his results) totally missed the Conservative Party's victory in the May 2015 general election.
But their big mistake, in retrospect, was oversampling young voters, who didn't turn out in the numbers anticipated. That resulted in overstating the support for Labour. But in this election, the young tend to support "remain." If they're being oversampled now, "leave" is in a stronger position than current polling shows.
The recent surge for "leave" seemed unlikely to elites. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, the leftist Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Scottish Nationalists and the Conservatives' 2010-2015 coalition partner Liberal Democrats all support "remain." So do the president of the Bank of England and the financial leaders of the City of London.
They all argue that Brexit would produce uncertainty and harm Britain's economy. Exports to the Continent might be reduced. Financial firms might flee. All this is plausible but conjectural. Many of these same experts believed the euro would be a great success and urged Britain to join. Not many Brits are sorry Britain didn't.
Missing from the "remain" camp's campaign of fear is any affirmative case for EU membership. That's not a coincidence. When Britain's Parliament and voters agreed to join in the 1970s, Europe looked shiny, bright and dynamic, Britain gritty, dull and stagnant.
Now things are the other way around. Since the financial crisis, Britain has grown more than any other advanced country. Europe, with its stifling labor laws, overabundant welfare states and dodgy finances, has grown not at all.
These arguments aren't advanced just by ragtag members of the UK Independence Party. The leaders of the "leave" campaign are Boris Johnson, the dazzling mayor of London for eight years until last month, and Michael Gove, who as education and justice secretary was the Conservatives' most effective reformer.
The argument they make most strongly for leaving is self-government. The European Union is an outgrowth of trade agreements made during the 1950s to prevent Germany and France from going to war again. The EU's leaders, not democratically accountable, have pursued "an ever-closer union," overriding sovereign states.
It was a noble aim, originally, and has had good effects in pushing nations wishing EU membership to meet democratic norms. But it has failed to create a European consciousness that can replicate the best effects, so visible in Britain over the years, of allegiance to a nation-state.
The lack of self-government is most visible in immigration. Britain must accept EU immigrants, more from Eastern Europe than it would like, and fears being forced to accept some of the nearly 1 million "refugees" that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on her own, welcomed to Germany in August 2015.
The dangers such young men -- or, in time, their young sons -- can cause have been visible in Cologne, Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and Orlando, as they were in Madrid and London a decade ago.
Johnson and Gove advocate an alternative for Britain, one advanced for America in these columns: a point system, to allow in only high-skill immigrants, as has been done so successfully in Australia and Canada.
Self-government also means getting away from EU over-regulation, symbolized by its dictates on the shape of bananas. The Continental tradition of France and Germany is that anything must be regulated before it is allowed. The British common-law tradition is that things are allowed until the people's representatives decide they must be regulated or banned.
In Britain in April Barack Obama called on Britons to vote "remain" and promised that if they didn't the U.S. would leave them "in the back of the queue" in trade negotiations -- a shameful stance toward a valiant ally.
Brexit is a choice for the British people, one we can live with and should respect whichever way they go.
If it happens, I think it signals a Trump presidency. But the Brits have grown timid with the years so we’ll see.
Just the fact that this has a chance of happening has given me hope for our country long term.
I spoke yesterday with a Brit who told me there seems to be a consensus that the status quo will prevail. The fear and loathing of change will prevail and staying will win out.
They’re finally learning that the EU is just a government within a government.
UNaccountable bureaucrats running your life? FU…EU.
It’s bad enough that somewhat accountable bureaucrats are ruining your republic. FUCONgre$$.
C’mon November.
It just makes sense for Britain to leave the EU. You’d think in these civilization-ending times, the best defense is to be an island, and not give that advantage away.
He leaves out the British Rotherham rape scandal. Police thought it worse to be called racist than arrest a Pakistani Muslim rape gang that groomed underaged girls before raping 1400+, sometimes prostituting them afterward. Over a ten year period.
When the image of the rapists as peaceful is more important than 13 year old girls getting raped, a government has lost all legitimacy.
There is one thing missing in the article - the influx of Islamic “refugees.”
Britain is a surprisingly small nation and until recently a homogenous one. With the influx of Islamic “Refugees” that refuse to adopt the average Britain is faced with changes he/she doesn’t want. His political leadership demand that he change his life style to meet the “refugee’s” demands (not requests). Add to this the problems that are affecting France and Germany and things get only worse.
Anyone who believes the US should remain a truly sovereign nation should believe every word of the above. All these trade agreements are steps toward regional and global bodies that the globalists are using to erode the sovereignty of the US and all other nations.
That's not the goal of everyone pushing so-called free trade, but it is the goal of most of the elites in the nations involved. And those pushing free trade who do not share those goals will likely prove to be some of history's biggest useful idiots.
Yes, and how British crime has soared, much of it at the hands of immigrants.
Nice to see Brits wake up to the truth - - that their ‘elites’ don’t give a damn about quality of life of the average British citizen... and that they need to return ‘the favor... AND not give a damn about what makes the elites comfortable...
Today did not Switzerland announce they withdrew their application? (Sweden?)
They bailed because the did not want the disaster the rest of the eu nations are facing.
the vote has to exceed the margin of fraud.
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