The Brexit ended in the surprising break of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
Rule Britannia!
The British people voted with their ballots, no bullets needed, and shouted “F-U!” to the EU.
Another Glorious Revolution, akin to the change of monarchical power in 1688. The British, after four decades of placid restoration from the Puritan Republic, feared the looming imposition of James the II, son of the more light-hearted Charles. His Catholic—read, statist—leanings imperiled the new expansion of liberty within the realm. Popular sentiment organized into another rebellion, with the aim of a new crown on the throne of England, more subservient to the Parliament.
Without bloodshed or heart-ache, the despot James II, pro-Catholic but anti-liberty, sensed that his time on the throne was short.
He fled to France.
Three hundred years later, British citizens—not subjects, and certainly not Europhile servants—sent the message loud and clear to secular statists out to suppress their true identity and legacy: “We will govern ourselves, respond to our own laws, and respect our judges. We will secure our own borders, and continue to thrive in a growing international market without your interloping.”
Bear in mind, Britain’s raging skepticism of the European experiment was well-founded. Sluggish markets, bureaucratic limitations, cultural stagnation, debilitating environmentalism—all with no say from the individual nations—had pushed business owners, entrepreneurs, and civil servants to the brink.
The Brexit had been gaining ground and grandeur for the past two decades.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, had launched the first broadsides from the side in 1992. The momentum crept up. As global markets expanded then contracted, the need for individual nation-states to take back their autonomy and destiny rang out clearer than ever.
UKIP went from a merry band of marginal euroskeptics to a robust mainstream movement, first in 2015 European Parliament elections, where they joined the widening bloc of anti-centralization forces throughout the continent. Their 2015 campaign for seats in Parliament was not successful on the surface. They had two seats, lost one. However, the Tories, led by their cost-cutting Prime Minister David Cameron capitulated to their demands for an EU referendum for June 23, 2016.
On that Election Night (Britain’s New Independence Day), Farage congratulated his many supporters, and the many voters beyond them who declared their fealty to national sovereignty and individual autonomy.
This British Breakaway is more than a populist revolt. This is not a temper-tantrum of desperate partisans who want the pain to stop. This departure is also much more than farmers with pitchforks or angry mobs demanding bread and looking for someone’s head to chop off. This final exit is a restoration of British values, national pride, and a remonstrance to techno-bureau-aristocrats intent on power at the expense of the people.
The eternal relevance of the Magna Carta shines through, and the more perfect way is brightly before us. This wonderful and unlikely fireworks display of local control flies in the face of two call consuming agendas.
First, the smug globalists, the earnest Marxists, and the left-wing elitists committed to a one-world government. The human impulse to cherish local traditions, national identity, and local customs will never leave man. The Communistic worldview has long adhered to the idea that ethnic differences would phase away and monetary, fiscal, and class-based conflicts would dominate world politics. Not the case. Britons voted “Leave”, knowing full well that breaking away from the EU would mean rewriting trade pacts with twenty-eight different countries. Their currency could take a hit, but is already stabilizing. Besides, the thriving economies of Switzerland, Guernsey, Iceland, and Norway should signal to any independent nation that secure borders, individual currencies, and diverse contracts will engage and enlarge their economic power, not diminish it.
Second, the sad defeatism of the conservative pessimists has fallen away. Pamela Geller deserves recognition and praise for her brave, political incorrect stance against Islam. And yet, she had lamented that the West has lost the will to live. The terrorist attacks, and the tepid response from the current leadership throughout Western Europe would disarm and discourage many. But the cultural pessimists were wrong, too.
The “extreme right” parties have been extremely right, as in correct, and have righted the ship of state in their own countries. Their radical views—departure from central banking and domestic policy. They not only embrace the will to live, but recall that Europe is more than a geographical location, but an idea, a repository of Judeo-Christian certainties which have thrived in spite of dark world.
The globalists and the pessimists have been sent packing. The Brexit is the first of many signs to show that the fight for grace and truth, liberty and justice in our time will not end in vain. The Netherlands, France, and Italy are lining up next, demanding rigorous reforms. France’s Front National (softened away from the ethnic hatred of previous leaders) wants a free nation again one which does not shy away from its glorious past to envision a glorious future. The Eastern Bloc has already secured its borders.
Rather than a continuation of countries coming together—as the resigned elitist historians had predicted—nation states are growing smaller, or seeking independence rather than sheer size. Margaret Thatcher was right, and her intuition has been rightly rewarded, despite waiting thirty years for vindication.
With the fall of the European Union, will Belgium even remain one nation after the disintegration of the European Union? Spain has retained a national identity in part through forced fusion of differing states from within, like Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque countries. Will they shift toward independence, too?
Smaller countries no longer have to fear military domination from neighboring states. The disintegration of the progressive, statist ideals signals a new birth of liberty and the advanced technological advances, from finance to communications, will ensure a smooth transition for all new states seeking greater autonomy over their own affairs.
From the Brexit breaks forth a new birth of freedom.