Anglosphere: January 2020 Archives

Today, January 31, 2020, at 5 p.m. Tulsa time, midnight Brussels time, the United Kingdom will cease to be a member of the European Union, the long-awaited fulfillment of the June 23, 2016, referendum, in which 17.4 million Britons voted to reassert their country's sovereignty and independence, free from the European superstate and its "ever increasing union."

I would dearly love to be in Parliament Square tonight, but instead I plan to toast the moment of Brexit with a pint of bitter at Tulsa's White Lion Pub. (The landlord of the White Lion has carefully positioned the pub on the fence, offering to celebrating Brexiteers and mourning Remainers alike $5 international bottled beers, both British and continental in origin.)

No one has contributed more to this result than Nigel Farage. The founder and leader of two Eurosceptic parties, Farage began the fight for withdrawal shortly after Prime Minister John Major forced accession to the Maastricht agreement through Parliament in 1992. His consistent pressure on the major parties (particularly the Tories) from the outside kept the UK out of full integration with the EU (didn't adopt the Euro, opted out of the Schengen Zone) and ultimately led PM David Cameron calling for a referendum in his 2015 re-election campaign. His creation of the Brexit Party at the beginning of 2019 and its disciplined campaign and massive victory in the European Parliament elections in May led to the resignation of PM Theresa May and the burial of her withdrawal deal that was BRINO -- Brexit in Name Only. While the final deal wasn't quite the clean break many Leavers wanted, the UK now leaves the EU with the freedom to pursue its own economic interests in the world.

Farage's final speech to the European Parliament ended with a demonstration of the petty anti-nationalism that epitomizes Eurocracy:

On his final day as an MEP, Farage gave a tour of the European Parliament Building in Strasbourg. The waste on display is stunning -- a massive traveling circus that moves from Brussels to Strasbourg for a monthly four-day session, then moves back to Brussels. Note too that the building is papered with posters propagandizing for "ever-closer union."