Brexit

Meanwhile, Across the Pond. . .

Featured image While we await the summa of Trumpismo tonight, it’s worth a look across the pond at the early outings of Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May. I’d never heard of her before the Brexit vote, but at least two early moves look promising. First, she appointed Boris Johnson foreign secretary, which is more recondite punishment for John Kerry. Second, May has indicated her government will shut down or downgrade climate »

The Brexit Vote: Italy Hardest Hit?

Featured image People who follow the financial outlook of Europe have known for a while now that next to Greece, the most unsteady economy is Italy. But Greece is such a tiny sliver of the European economy that it didn’t matter that much except as a symbol of the resolve of the European Union to keep the party going. The Greek bailout was comparatively cheap. Not so Italy. Its economy is one »

Brexit: The latest example of Obama’s cluelessness

Featured image President Obama and his foreign policy team are perpetually surprised by the world. The rise of ISIS, the fall of Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood leader who succeeded him, the chaos in Libya, Putin’s aggression, Netanyahu’s reelection — all of these key developments (and others) wrong-footed the president and his advisers. You might almost think they don’t understand the world at all. Brexit is the latest manifestation of Team Obama’s »

Piers Morgan Has a Stopped-Clock Moment

Featured image Like most sensible people I found Piers Morgan completely insufferable when he was on CNN. I didn’t think anything could make me miss Larry King—until Morgan began his haughty huffings. I’d rather watch a Justin Bieber concert than listen to Morgan speak another word about the Second Amendment. I’d submit to listening to the Oak Ridge Boys sing “Elvira” for a month nonstop rather than listen to Morgan (though I »

Sir Roger Scruton on Brexit

Featured image I don’t know why I didn’t think of looking weeks or months ago to see what SIR Roger Scruton had to say about the Brexit question, but naturally it turns out he said quite a lot, and all of  it sensible. This video from last December is very short, obviously on a continental TV show, and he explains that the Brexit question is much less economical than political and cultural: »

Savoring the Brexit Freakout

Featured image The collective freakout by the elites finds no better expression than in the indignation of CNN’s execrable Christiane Amanpour, who gets smacked back quite effectively by the impressive Daniel Hannan: »

International Reaction to Brexit? Clueless

Featured image As Brexit reverberates around the Western world, it is fun to observe the almost universal myopia of liberal commentators. This is from Sweden: “Brexit, a sign of anti-elite revolt: analysts.” So the analysts are starting to catch on. But they still have a ways to go: It was Britain’s poorer and less-educated citizens — angry at not having shared in the economic benefits of a new world order — who »

A Penny for your thoughts

Featured image Here’s the measured response of a British leftist, Laurie Penny, to the Brexit: So, here’s the thing. This was never a referendum on the EU. It was a referendum on the modern world, and yesterday the frightened, parochial lizard-brain of Britain voted out, out, out, and today we’ve all woken up still strapped onto this ghost-train as it hurtles off the tracks. Voting against “the modern world”! Why, that’s almost »

Nationalism without a nationalist

Featured image Nationalism, by which I mean here vigorous push back against excessive internationalism and immigration, scored its second major victory of the year when Britain voted to leave the EU. The first victory came when Donald Trump won the Republican nomination. His closest rival, Ted Cruz, was also nationalistic in the sense described above, though not as vigorously so as Trump. Trump, though, is the underdog in his race against Hillary »

The Obama-Brexit bounce

Featured image Has Barack Obama ever persuaded anybody of anything? (I mean anything other than voting for him for office.) I don’t think so. Obama’s contribution to the Remain case — the threat the Great Britain will have to get “in the back of the queue” for a trade agreement with the United States — may even have proved a boon to the Brexit cause. So says Nigel Farage, the stalwart British »

Jeff Sessions and Hillary Clinton React to Brexit

Featured image Senator Jeff Sessions released a statement on yesterday’s Brexit vote. As usual, Sessions has his finger on the pulse: [The people’s] strong vote arose not out of fear and pique but out of love for country and pride of place. Their experience with a distant government in Brussels was given a long and fair chance to succeed. In the end, however, they concluded that the costs outweighed the benefits. … »

Why Are Liberals So Hateful?

Featured image I will have thoughts on the implications of Brexit later in the day, but for now want to ask a more limited question: why are liberals so hateful? The last days of the EU campaign were marred by the Remain camp–i.e., the forces of Britain’s establishment–trying to use the appalling murder of MP Jo Cox as political fodder. Against all reason, they tried to tar the Brexit campaign with the »

Brexit, Take 3

Featured image Yesterday was a big news day before any Brexit votes had been counted. Two major Supreme Court decisions, one of which voided a core Obama legacy item, plus the collapse of the Freddie Gray prosecutions. But with the Brexit vote, yesterday became historic. On this, I think both sides of the argument agree. I agree with Scott that by voting to leave the EU the British people have retaken their »

Brexit, take 2

Featured image I never did understand the case for Britain’s continued membership in the European Union. Barack Obama’s threat against Brexit — issued at the invitation of Prime Minister Cameron, no less, and perhaps scripted by Ben Rhodes — made for a clarifying moment. Is Barack Obama a friend of Great Britain? I don’t think so. If one hesitated to make the leap to Leave, that should have sealed the deal all »

A Republic, if we can keep our TV shows

Featured image When Scotland was getting set to vote on whether to leave Great Britain, “stay” supporters raised the specter that an exit might mean loss of access to popular BBC television series. The “leave” movement took pains to assure Scots they would still be able to watch such shows as EastEnders, Doctor Who, and Strictly Come Dancing. Scotland voted to stay, so we never found out whether an independent Scotland would »