Well, what do you know?
Faced with fear-mongering status quo addicts warning them of the dangers of real change, British voters chose to take a stand for sovereignty, borders and national identity. Now we’ll see if America will do the same in November.
Displaying a courage and clarity that seemed decidedly American in flavor, The UK has cast off the suffocating blanket of the European Union. This should serve to inspire other countries on the continent who are noticing that their national identities are being smothered by globalist instincts to homogenize their societies for some ill-conceived greater good.
Forged by post-World War II economic partnerships and honed under the European Economic Community (EEC) title from the late fifties until the official EU designation in 1993, the concept of a partnership to exploit common interests has morphed into a burdensome anvil that restricts the properties that allow Europe’s nations to excel on the engines of their individual merits.
It boggles the mind why any nation would agree to enter into an overarching supervisory arrangement that has its own parliament. Britain surrendered latitude over lawmaking on matters from the environment to transportation to consumer rights. And that’s before we even get to borders.
Any EU nation passport is recognized in all EU nations, a lovely convenience for tourism but a nightmare in an era when unfettered immigration is diluting once-distinct European societies. Want to live in another EU country? Pack and go.
A European Court of Justice rules on EU laws, ruling against many appeals brought by the British government. The ECJ even makes it harder for the UK to deport violent criminals.
British immigration is out of control. Government targets of limiting the influx to 100,000 are a fantasy unless border controls are returned to the British people, who are seeing their society threatened by an annual intake of more than 350,000.
Now Britain has voted to kiss this folly goodbye, along with its massive net costs and few net benefits.
The Remain brigades whipped the electorate into a worried lather with promises of a plunging currency, shattered trade agreements and diminished influence on the world stage. They lost clarity on the fact that a nation’s influence is most sharply defined when it thinks and acts based on its own interests, not watered down into a multinational porridge.
As the hour grew late in America, and dawn approached in Great Britain, a fire was lit as the BBC and other networks called the election in favor of Leave. If American voters can muster the same strength, we can show the world that we too have regained our senses after years of being mashed into an internationalist puree, not by a multinational external nanny state but by our own leaders.
Leading from behind. Subjugating American interests to foreign sensitivities. Downplaying U.S. values as inferior against a backdrop of a world losing its grip on basic values. These slides have consequences, and some Americans have had enough of it. Those passions were atomized across a field of Republican candidates, but most gathered around the candidacy of Donald Trump.
A flurry of mixed feelings swirls around the Trump candidacy as voters weigh whether they can sign onto his multi-flavored ideologies and multi-faceted personality. But the core of Trump followers, with differences on foreign policy, taxes and social issues, unite under a shared hunger— a return to a time when our leaders considered the interests of our people, our economy and our borders first.
The appeal of that concept does not fit tidily into the ideological frameworks that usually guide our elections. This is why some conservatives are tied up in knots when they know deep down that they must vote to prevent a Hillary Clinton presidency: the Trump Train was hardly the vehicle they envisioned as their ticket to escape the Obama era.
But November provides us a chance to echo the inspiring audacity of our British cousins, beefing up our borders and standing up for sovereignty after decades of neglect at the hands of both parties.
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage spoke to adrenaline-fueled supporters at 4 a.m., expressing the hope that Brexit success “leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation-states trading together, being friends together, cooperating together.” He gave voice to his countrymen ready to jettison the trappings of the collectivist EU and its reign from afar: “Let’s get rid of the flag, the anthem, Brussels, and all that has gone wrong… Let June 23rd go down in our history as our independence day!”
This is compelling stuff, and instructive if we are wise enough to pay attention. A comfort-zone establishment scolded voters eager for change, cajoling them to simply bow to the elders’ wise counsel and shed their crazy instincts for bold change.
Sound familiar?
British voters trusted their instincts that several fundamental things in their nation were going very wrong, mostly at the behest of ideas that had subjugated their national identity. The same has happened in our own nation, and if we have the guts to vote accordingly in November, we can engineer our own exit, from years of inattention to the characteristics of a strong nation: borders that mean something, pride in who we are, and priorities that favor our own citizens.