The biggest political story of the month? Brexit.
The people of Great Britain will vote, this week, whether to remain in, or exit, the European Union. (Britain+exit=“Brexit,” you see.)
Establishment forces in Britain have engaged in hysterical, hyperbolic overkill, warning of grave disaster were Britain to leave the union. America’s President Barack Obama contributed to this, recently, when he warned that an independent Britain might find itself placed “at the back of the queue” in trade talks.
Tragically, things got more troubling last week when anti-Brexit, pro-union campaigner Jo Cox, a Member of Parliament and prominent Labour Party activist, was brutally slain last week in front of her local library. The man had just left a mental health facility, after requesting help.
At first, major media reported that the killer had shouted “Britain First,” an old patriotic motto as well as the name of a pro-Brexit political party, while shooting and stabbing her. Of the several eyewitnesses to have allegedly testified to this murderous shout, only one is sticking to the story … a member of the British Nationalist Party, which is antagonistic to Britain First. Other eyewitnesses deny the story.
Next, both sides promised to cease campaigning, out of good taste. Still, polls fluctuated, while remaining close.
Much of the furor has risen over immigration policy, especially fears about EU laxity towards Muslim refugees.
But the bedrock issue is Big Government. The EU is not effectively controlled by citizens; indeed, membership representation is mostly show, a mockery of republican government.
That is why, if I were British, I’d vote to Brexit.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Hysteria, Assassination, and Big Government”
What is interesting is that the American stock market is supposed to take a huge hit if Britain does exit. Apparently the American stocks are heavily invested in the EU continuing to do well and, like Britain, they have figured out that that with all the rush of welfare immigrants from the Middle East as well as the general instability of the socialist welfare states, that Britain will end up carrying the majority of the cost while having very little say. Like the American Southern States figured out when tried to leave in 1861. But Britain will not be able to be invaded and made to keep funding things.
What would Churchill do?
The great author George MacDonald Fraser wrote some years ago, “Since 1972, when the country was dragooned into the common market by Edward Heath, successive governments with a cynical disregard for public opinion, have squandered countless millions of treasure for the benefit for the moocher nations of the EU, and in return our farming and fishing industries have been brought to the brink of ruin, our constitution undermined, and our laws, passed by properly elected Britons brushed aside whenever they are at odds with the directives of unelected foreign bureaucrats whose corruption is a byword, in whose appointment we had no say, and whose will is sovereign while ours goes for nothing.”
It has apparently taken Britain another decade and a half to “wise up” to Fraser’s assessment.
Republican governments do noot seem to work well when controlled by progressives.
Why should Britain continue to support the wasteful, progressive & liberal spendthrift ways of the EU? Certainly understand, with open borders & so many radicalized Muslims already in their country; that they desire to not become another Paris, Berlin, Brussels.
I’m with you, Paul, I’d Brexit! And I certainly hope the stock market doesn’t take a hit.