Another "Peace-In-Our-Time" Disaster

Deep Throat Insider

Theresa May’s Brexit Deal – ‘It’s a Trap’


Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit “deal” is a deviously engineered, triple-lock trap which will leave Britain stuck for all eternity in the European Union, an anonymous civil servant has confirmed.
The civil servant, writing at Brexit Central, describes May’s Withdrawal Agreement as an “Orwellian misnomer”. Far from helping Britain to leave the EU it keeps it perpetually bound in chains.

He or she goes on to detail the three locks which have been cunningly inserted into the Withdrawal Agreement by legalistically-minded civil servants who know exactly how to sabotage Brexit. 

First is the transition period, lasting until at least 2021.

We must hand over an estimated £39 billion for nothing, be bound by EU law and take orders from an unelected Joint Committee operating under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Will the EU27 agree an equitable free trade agreement before the end of 2020? Unlikely, since all the goodies they want in the “future partnership” are set out in the Northern Ireland backstop, which kicks in automatically on 1st January 2021.

Second is the backstop.

The Future of the Eurocracy

Crumbling

Is the EU falling apart?  It has been a long, long time coming, but we believe the answer lies in the affirmative.  The endgame of the EU has always been to "retire" the nation-states and transfer authority, power, and governance to a federal government.  Britain would have been equivalent to a California; Germany to a Texas.  All would have been subservient to the federal overlordship.

But this longed-for trajectory has reached the point where to make further progress towards the great federal goal the Eurocracy must bring the nation states under more control.  Now the controls are extending to include those which purport to govern each local community.  Not unexpectedly, the locals are reacting.  Sumantra Maitra writes:

The EU is punishing Britain, threatening Switzerland and Italy, crippling Greece, and suing Hungary and Poland. Democratic elections in member states have little meaning within any country in the EU, as its purpose is to transcend national boundaries. Nothing is really consequential unless Berlin and Brussels agree to it.

There’s just one problem.

Boris Johnson Beats the Drum

The EU Is Treating Britain’s Constitution with Contempt

Oliver J J Lane
Breitbart London

The European Union is working to violate the very basis of the United Kingdom and even annex part of the country as an economic colony, high-profile Tory rebel Boris Johnson has said, in his continued assault against the Prime Minister’s soft Brexit plan.

Although one-time Foreign Secretary and former Mayor of London Johnson was widely seen to have bottled his chance of challenging Theresa May’s leadership when he stepped back from the brink at the Conservative Party conference where he even gave a craven message of support for the Prime Minister, he has continued sniping from the sidelines since.

In his latest intervention into the Brexit negotiation process — published in the Daily Telegraph even as latest talks between British and European Union negotiators collapse — Johnson blasted the EU for offering the UK nothing but humiliation. Contrasting the humiliation of having Northern Ireland — Ulster — remain in the EU while the home nations of Great Britain leave and the humiliation of the whole United Kingdom being forced to remain in the Single Market against its own wishes, Johnson wrote:

It is a choice between two exquisitely embarrassing varieties of humiliation. It is an entirely false choice. It must be rejected, and it must be rejected now… In that sense it would mean violating the Act of Union of 1800, and the very basis on which this country is founded.

Brexit Woes

Hard Times?  Maybe Not

Brexit is a shambles.  At least, it appears that way.  Here are the brutal realities.  British PM, Theresa May has put forward a scheme of arrangement to the Eurocrats running the EU.  It is soundly condemned by members of her own party, who believe it supinely bows to the demands of the Eurocrats.  Boris Johnson, for example, has stridently condemned the May Plan known as "Chequers".

Former Foreign Secretary and two-time London Mayor Boris Johnson made a thinly disguised bid for leadership of the nation Tuesday afternoon at a fringe event at the annual Conservative party conference, calling for Conservatives to embrace popular policies, cut taxes, and deliver Brexit.  The would-be Conservative leader saved discussion of the foremost matter in British politics — Brexit — until the end of his speech, telling the cheering audience at the conference fringe event that May’s plan was a “cheat”, and that “this is the moment to chuck Chequers.” [Breitbart London]

There is not too much doubt about the intent when Boris delivered the punchline of "chuck Chequers". 

At the same time, the Eurocrats have been equally mocking and dismissive of May's efforts.  In fact, they were downright rude--and their rhetoric is getting worse.  A reasonable expectation, therefore, is that May's plan will fall to shreds upon the cutting floor.

Why are the Eurocrats so intractable, one may ask?  It is clear they want to discipline and punish the UK for even thinking about leaving.  We suspect that in the inner smoke-filled rooms, where unmentionables are discussed, the Eurocrats see the beginning of the end of the EU itself were Britain to succeed in leaving.

What remains, then, is the looming hard date of Brexit (29th March, 2019).  May is in an invidious position.

First Hungary, Now Poland

‘Don’t Lecture Us’

Poland’s Patriotic Prime Minister Warns EU

Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned the European Union to listen to its increasingly disenfranchised citizens, respect its member-states, and face up to “reality” in a speech to the European Parliament.

“European sovereignty cannot mean building up Europe at the expense of member-states”, Morawiecki told MEPs in Strasbourg.  Weak member-states and countries who feel they’re being ignored would be a recipe for indifference to the EU, in which the EU is seen as a problem and not a solution,” he warned.

The Polish premier claimed that, for his part, he wanted a strong Europe, but a strong Poland within it, and was not shy about highlighting the EU’s many problems.  “As a young man, I was a member of the anti-Communist opposition fighting for freedom and democracy,” he recalled.  “In the last few years, the European Union has been dealing with a number of existential crises: the financial crisis, the banking crisis, the eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, or Russian aggression; five ‘Nos’ in referendums, and a change in the political landscape in member-states,” he observed.

“All of these things go to show the ‘European project’ needs a new openness… Instead of wringing our hands about the threat [of populism] we should start thinking about how we got in this situation where many Europeans no longer like the direction that the EU is going in,” he added, advising figures who dismiss eurosceptics as “marginal figures” to face up to “reality”.

“People have a ‘freedom gene’ in their DNA,” warned the Polish premier.

Viktor Orbán On the Stump

We Old War Horses Recognize Them From Their Smell

Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London


Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has launched a stunning denunciation of globalism, declaring that the “true spirit of the age” points to a resurgence of conservative values centred on country, family, and tradition.  The Hungarian premier drew battle lines between a “silent majority” of ordinary people who “provide for their families, love their homelands, and insist on their Christian roots” on the one hand, and the “globalist elites, the bureaucrats who serve them, the politicians in their pay, and the agents of the Soros-type networks that embody their interests” on the other.

“We should realise that the soothing melodies pouring out of the speakers of powerful global corporations and global political organisations – siren voices encouraging breezy irresponsibility, frenzied consumption, and boundless self-indulgence – are not at all the same as the spirit of the age,” he said.

“Under the soft blanket of dreams laid down by the global elite, one finds the cold, hard reality of life.  We see tens of millions of Europeans working hard and struggling day in, day out to keep themselves and their families afloat.  We see how they yearn for security and order.  We see how they cleave ever more firmly to their cultural identity, and fight every day for every square metre of their normal European life,” he said.

 Hungary's prime minister warns ‘United States of Europe’ plotters are using mass immigration to engineer a “post-national, post-Christian” super-state.

The Common Law and European Law Pass As Ships in the Night

The Common Law and Brexit

Ted Malloch
BreitbartLondon

It is inane to ignore the distinction between common law and civil law or between the English definition of Rule of Law and the European Rechtsstaat. The two are radically different.

This is directly challenged by the Brexit vote, wherein citizens of the UK voted to secede from the European Union for a reason. There should be no turning back.

Under the European Union, life has become increasingly regulated by legislation issued, centralized, and administered by Brussels. The EU is “not merely an economic union” but is intended to “ensure social progress and seek the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples,” thus it has encompassed the continental conception of Rechtsstaat, wherein government is conceived of as an enterprise, as opposed to, a civil association. This is a world apart.

EU legislation is proposed and drafted by the Commission (consisting of EU officials nominated by the Parliament, who are not elected) and then passed by the EU Council and Parliament. EU legislation comes in two forms:  Directives and Regulations. Directives order a member country or countries to adopt legislation according to certain parameters. Regulations, once passed, are immediately effective without implementing legislation. . . . 

U.S. businessman Ted Malloch, Donald Trump’s potential choice as envoy to the EU, speaks to The Associated Press during an interview in London, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Malloch said the bloc is anti-American and the U.S. will try to build bilateral relationships with European countries instead. Ted Malloch says the U.S. is “critical and suspicious” of the EU project. He says “we would prefer, certainly in the Trump administration, to work with countries bilaterally.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The Brexit vote surprised and astonished people in Europe and around the world who could not – and still cannot – understand why citizens of the United Kingdom would vote to secede from the European Union.

An Interesting Nomination From Jehu II

Anti EU Ambassador Nominated to the EU!

James Delingpole
Breitbart London

The more I see of the Donald Trump administration, the more I like its style.  Here’s a perfect example – in which Trump’s prospective new Ambassador to the European Union, Ted Malloch, tells it like it is in an interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Daily Politics show.

Neil asked Malloch why on earth he’d want to be Ambassador to the EU.

AN: I mean you’re clearly not a great fan of Brussels or these bureaucrats like Juncker.

TM: Well, I had in a previous year a diplomatic post where I helped to bring down the Soviet Union, so maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming.

Later, Neil asked Malloch what he thought of the President of the EU Commission.

AN: What do you think of Mr Juncker?

TM: Well Mr Juncker was a very adequate mayor of some city in Luxembourg and maybe he should go back and do that again.

Neil laughed like a man who couldn’t believe his luck. Politicians are hardly ever this frank on TV politics shows.

Populist Superficiality

Beyond the Balrog

John O'Sullivan has written an insightful piece in National Review Online in which he analyses the present brouhaha over the "wave of populism" allegedly sweeping Europe.  It turns out that the label "populism" is like using a six inch brush to paint a Faberge egg.

Europe has gotten tired of being anguished about Donald Trump and has now moved on to being anguished about itself. The question being asked by all the Big Think editorials and news magazine programs runs: “Is Europe going populist too?”  . . .

“Populism” is a scare word meant to delegitimize rebellions against political establishments and mainstream elites. It draws together under the same big, scary tent parties and causes that have a little in common otherwise. There is no “populist” ideology that unites these various dissidents the way Marxist ideology united international socialists for more than a century.

What all these manifestations of "populism" have in common is a desire to change the status quo--but the precise character of the status quo differs somewhat from country to country within Europe.  Thus "populism" can look like a multi-headed hydra.  The Establishment fears and loathes every one of the heads--and that is about all they have in common.

Imperial Pretensions Withering On the Vine

Light Up Ahead

Ever since we read Bernard Connolly's The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War For Europe's Money [London: Faber and Faber, 1995] we have been anticipating the dissolution of the "European Project".  Therefore, when Brexit finally became mandatory by plebiscite, we saw brighter lights ahead.  It is possible that gradually the various Europe will eventually repent of their thraldome to idolatrous humanitarianism and humble themselves before God once more.

In the meantime, Brexit is having immediate consequences in the United Kingdom.  The teeth of the European Court of Human Rights have been summarily pulled out.  The extraction has meant that the growing restrictions upon Christian work and worship in that country are in the process of being removed.  It seems as if no longer will Christians standing on street corners preaching the Gospel be arrested and accused of "hate speech".  Free speech looks like it is making a gradual comeback.

At periods of history when a nation turns away from the Living God, whom it once feared and loved, the road to redemption and restoration can appear overwhelming.  Faithful Christians, sons of the prophets--if you will--can be downcast at the sheer size of the task.  Where to begin?  What to do?  In such times, we have been often reminded of Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

There appeared no prospect for rest ahead.   Then, when something like the Brexit vote occurs, prospects are immediately brighter and the journey does not appear so long and unending.  That is not to imply that the task of national Reformation is any small matter.  It will take several, if not more, generations of faithful preaching, teaching, and action.

But the challenges and issues are now local.  It was not the gnomes of Zurich but the gargoyles of Brussels and Strasbourg we feared, issuing dicta and promulgating judgements, so far removed, so untouchable, yet so sweeping and destructive.  How could the ordinary citizens of the UK redress and resist such imperial pretensions?  Now, all that has gone--at least in principle.

The ramifications stretch even way down to the Antipodes.  We read recently--with a merry chuckle--of the plans already being made for the UK and New Zealand to enter into a bilateral free trade agreement.

(REUTERS) – Britain and New Zealand agreed on Monday to set up regular trade policy talks to help push for greater global trade liberalisation and reform as Britain leaves the European Union, trade minister Liam Fox said.  Britain, which voted to leave the bloc in June, is keen to court countries outside the EU on trade, but cannot formally agree any deals until it has left the bloc, a process which will take at least two years from when it starts divorce talks.

“In leaving the EU, we have the opportunity to drive even greater openness and put Britain at the forefront of global trade,” Fox said in a statement after meeting New Zealand’s minister of trade, Todd McClay.  “This new trade policy dialogue reflects a strong political commitment from New Zealand and the UK to take the lead in pushing for greater global trade liberalisation and reform and I look forward to working closely with them.” [Breitbart London]

In some ways, a little thing.  In others, a harbinger of the magnum of the Brexit plebiscite.  Maybe, historians will eventually come to cast Brexit as the Second Glorious Revolution.

Triumphalism Wearing Thin

Electoral Oblivion Beckons

Further commentary on the growing popular disaffection with Progressivism in the West, from Yahoo News.

Brutal Headwinds Blast Europe's Centre-Left

London (AFP)
James Pheby

Bitter internal strife, plunging support among voters and surging populism: has there ever been a worse time to be a centre-left party in Europe?  A dozen years ago, left-of-centre giants seemed a natural source of government in many European states.  But today the tally of parties that are declining, sidelined or ideologically adrift is long.

The sick list is headed by Britain's Labour Party, where veteran radical Jeremy Corbyn last week easily won a leadership challenge by centrist MPs angry at his part in the shock Brexit vote.  But political analysts say the venerable party -- founded in 1900 -- faces electoral oblivion despite his victory.  Its dismal standing in the opinion polls is mirrored across Europe.

Taking Back One's Country

Breathe the Free Air

We will make an educated guess that we'all did not know there was a such a beast as the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance.  Not that we are surprised us to find out that such an animal actually exists: it's just that there are so many committees and commissions in the EU that if you laid out all the members serving on all the regulatory bodies head to tail, face down, in a long row . . . it would be a good start.

If ever there was an occasion to rejoice over the Brexit decision, the EU Commission Against Racism and Intolerance has provided one.

European human rights chiefs have told the British press it must not report when terrorists are Muslim.  The recommendations came as part of a list of 23 meddling demands to Theresa May’s government on how to run the media in an alarming  threat to freedom speech.

The report, drawn up by the Council of Europe's human rights watchdog, blamed the recent increase in hate crimes and racism in the UK on the 'worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians', although the research was done before the EU referendum campaign had even begun. [Daily Mail]

This oh-so-holy Committee of Rectitude has ordered the UK Government to forbid the media mentioning that an Islamic terrorist who commits atrocities is a professing Islamic adherent.  To mention such things provokes "hate crimes".

One thinks of King Theoden in Tolkien's Two Towers under the thrall of Wormtongue.  Once released by Gandalf, he is invited to come outside his palace-prison and "breathe the free air" once again.  What a jolt of Red Bull energy must now be running through the veins of the present UK government.  At last they are free to ignore such authoritarian, meddling rulings emanating out of Mordor-like Brussels.

Much Ado About Very Little

Brexit Contagion

When the British people were considering how they might vote over Brexit, the hen house suddenly flew open and Chicken Littles ran squawking down every highway and street, past every hamlet.  If Britain voted to leave, calamity upon calamity would result.  The very sky would fall in.  

One such prophesied calamity was that a recession, if not depression, would descend upon the UK economy.  In matters economic, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney was one of the loudest doomsters, declaring that the UK economy would suffer greatly, were the UK to leave.

To be sure, once the vote to leave was successful, the UK sharemarket went south, along with most other bourses around the world.  But markets react to fear and greed.  In this case fear--heightened by the expectation that Brexit would be voted down--caused pension fund managers to hit the "sell" button.  Within days, however, the markets had returned to pre-Brexit levels.  What was that all about?  Much ado about very little.

And what are we hearing now?

Ineffectual Inability

Euro Rhubarb At Work

France has been enjoying the services of its vast, sclerotic bureaucracy, with all the deadly unintended  consequences, when it comes to fighting Islamic terrorism.  A French parliamentary investigation into the security and anti-terrorist services has concluded that successive terrorist attacks upon innocent French citizens could have been prevented, had not the multiple intelligence agencies failed miserably.

In the Guardian report, one paragraph paints the picture with startling clarity:

The report considered the fact that eight soldiers from Operation Sentinelle who had been present outside the Bataclan during the terrorist attack did not intervene because they had not been given orders to do so. Police officers arriving at the scene asked the soldiers to lend them their assault weapons but the soldiers, obeying army rules, refused to hand them over.

Take that one instance of defalcation, idiocy, and irresponsibility and multiply it a thousand times through countless agencies acting in concrete silos and steel bunkers, talking only to themselves, minding their own domains, playing bureaucratic games and you get the picture.  The terrorists appeared superhuman, like a diabolical Scarlet Pimpernel, to be sought here, and there, but able to slip through undetected until death was unleashed.  But they were allowed to be so "clever" because the French agencies were so impotent.

In a perverse kind of way, this should give us some comfort.

What Took the UK So Long?

As Plain As the Nose On Your Face

A former NZ Prime Minister, Geoffrey Palmer has the matter of Brexit absolutely right, in our view.  His comments on the eventual failure of the European State are apt.  Brexit is just the beginning.

Brexit resulted in my view from a break down in accountabilities. It is entirely understandable.  Having spent most of February in the UK when the whole campaign for the referendum got under way in earnest I was not surprised, although I thought that Remain may win narrowly. My point is essentially constitutional. There has been created by the EU a democratic deficit.

The whole thing began with the European Coal and Steel Community after the World War Two. This progressed in time to the Common Market, known as the European Economic Community, and then the European Union. I think after the Lisbon Treaty things began to become very difficult to manage. It started out small and progressed to 28 nations.

Along the way the populations of each of the "member states" lost the core, fundamental rights of citizens in a democracy: they lost the right to hold their representatives and rulers to account.  As the EU has deliberately morphed towards an uber-state, ordinary people who had voted for years, even centuries, holding their rulers to account, gradually found that this fundamental authority, implicit in all democratic or republican government, has been removed while they lay sleeping.

Letter From America (About The End of History And the Last Man)

Brexit and the End of International Progressive Inevitability

Whose side is history on now?

By David French
National Review Online

I’m old enough to remember when history had a side. History, you see, had chosen to progress toward an international order that de-emphasized international sovereignty, elevated a bureaucratic and technocratic elite, and sought to solve international conflict through a combination of moral and economic pressure. Nations caused wars, so nationalism (and even patriotism) had to be set aside. Democracy unleashed bigotry, so “the people” mattered mainly when they agreed with the elite.

It was a system that worked remarkably well for the international upper class. Men and women dedicated to commerce enjoyed unprecedented access to international markets. Activists dedicated to social justice could engineer their societies without ever truly facing the accountability of the ballot box. The logic of the system was self-proving. It would triumph through the sheer force of its virtue.

Unable to grasp the extent to which the new international order had endured and prospered not so much through its self-evident goodness but through the protection of American arms, it proved completely incapable of meeting the challenge when America chose to retreat.

The Hidden Costs of EU Membership

Loathed EU Rules That Influenced Brexit

Chriss W. Street
BreitbartLondon


The media elites are somewhat right that the Brexit victory was about the UK voters’ disdain for globalization, immigration, and lost pride, but the real cause of the British asking for an EU divorce was the $46.6 billion in hard costs for intangible benefits.

Open Europe is a non-partisan think tank with offices in London and Brussels that produces an annual report measuring the cost burden of 40,000 EU-derived legal acts, 15,000 Court verdicts and 62,000 international standards on the United Kingdom.

Their 2015 report for the “Top 100” regulations estimated the financial burden on the UK economy at $46.6 billion. To put that drain on the economy in perspective, the top 100 EU regulations cost more than the $37.8 billion in local property taxes, called “Council Tax,” paid by British citizens to the UK Treasury last year.

The top five costliest EU-derived regulations in force in the UK were:

At The Crossroads

Will Britain Seize the Moment Or Lament Brexit?

Brexit came, saw, and conquered.  We believe on balance that this is a very, very good thing.  Here are some reasons why.

The EC is a step towards humanitarianism too far.  It has evolved from a free trade economic union into an uber-state.  Increasingly Brussels and Strasbourg were imposing the latest human rights d'jour upon member states, overriding their own governments.  A clique of oligarchs who were never exposed to the vote or ratification by ordinary citizens ruled with growing powers.  They have never held to account by citizens at the ballot box.  This represented the worst of all worlds: a kind of divine right to rule, coupled with a belief in truths to which every knee must bow.  Britain is far better off out of it.

Secondly, the EU has always been a reluctant free-trader.  It wants controls, not liberty and respect for the property of others.  Rather, it has served to protect member states from competition from other nations. Consequently, European farmers still enjoy significant subsidies from the government.

Peter Hitchens Expresses Scepticism Over Brexit

Peter Hitchens On The EU and Brexit

On March 30th at the Institute of Economic Affairs in Westminster, NewsRedial’s Peter Stephenson sat with author Peter Hitchens of The Mail on Sunday and asked him about the machinations of the Brexit pantomime.

I first asked Mr Hitchens if he thought the ‘out’ camp would win the referendum vote and if so then would the government carry out the will of the people?

Here is a transcript of our discussion:

PETER HITCHENS: First of all I’m against governments calls to plebiscites. I think they are an outrage and I don’t think any parliamentary country should have them. Secondly, I think this one was held solely to save the Conservative party. It was never intended to be held in the first place and I don’t think--there are no clauses in the act that would state what would happen. I very doubt that Parliament dominated by enthusiasts to stay in the European Union is capable of taking us out even if there is a vote to leave.

I think that what is more likely to happen, and no one can say for certain because there (unclear) . . be a vote to stay which will be declared an end to the debate and that we can all go home and forget about it forever and that is why I say that the referendum is a trap rather than an exit.

Grimly Counting the Dead

An Elite Disembodied

One of the most interesting aspects of the Brexit vote was the way the "working stiffs" deserted the Labour Party and voted to leave the EU.  This went against the collective wisdom of the vast majority of Labour politicians.  It turns out that the working classes in the Midlands had some grievances that their political masters were paternalistically ignoring.  Until the Brexit vote.

Here is the view of one Guardian columnist.

They listened to experts tell them that Brexit meant disaster … and their answer was: get stuffed

Matthew D'Ancona
The Guardian

Before analysis, let us admit to awe: the sheer scale of the moment requires it. The word “historic” is deployed too lazily in political discourse. But it is entirely appropriate this morning. This is a hugely significant day in British (and European) history.  When a party loses an election, its soon-to-be-ex-leader rallies the troops and promises a different result next time. But no such option is open to the crushed chieftains of remain today. There is no “next time”.

This was a unique opportunity to seal Britain’s relationship with the European Union, or to end it. And the voters – at a high level of turnout – decided that it was time to go. They heard the warnings, listened to experts of every kind tell them that Brexit meant disaster, watched the prime minister as he urged them not to take a terrible risk. And their answer was: get stuffed.

The ramifications leave one giddy.