{"id":24523,"date":"2016-06-27T05:30:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T09:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=24523"},"modified":"2016-06-27T09:46:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T13:46:12","slug":"on-britains-independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/06\/on-britains-independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"On Britain’s “Independence Day”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Though the stock markets are reeling and Scotland and Northern Ireland\u2013and maybe even London!<\/a>\u2014 are considering leaving Great Britain, turning it into \u201cLittle Britain,\u201d others are congratulating the United Kingdom for achieving \u201cIndependence\u201d from the European Union. \u00a0Five more countrie<\/a>s\u2013France, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Finland\u2013are now considering their own exits. \u00a0UPDATE: \u00a0Also Italy, Poland, and Slovakia<\/a>. \u00a0After the jump, thoughts supporting Britain\u2019s action from ex-Republican <\/a>George Will.<\/p>\n

\n

From George Will,\u00a0Brexit: Britain\u2019s welcome revival of nationhood \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The \u201cleave\u201d campaign won the referendum on withdrawing Britain from the European Union because the arguments on which the \u201cremain\u201d side relied made leave\u2019s case. The remain campaign began with a sham, was monomaniacal with its Project Fear<\/a> and ended in governmental thuggishness.<\/p>\n

The sham was Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s attempt to justify remain by negotiating E.U. concessions regarding Britain\u2019s subservience to the E.U. This dickering for scraps of lost sovereignty underscored Britain\u2019s servitude and achieved so little that Remainers rarely mentioned it during their campaign.<\/p>\n

Project Fear was the relentless and ultimately ludicrous parade of Cassandras, \u201cexperts\u201d all, warning that Britain, after more than a millennium of sovereign existence, and now with the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy, would endure myriad calamities were it to end its 23-year membership in the E.U. Remain advocates rarely even feigned enthusiasm for the ramshackle, sclerotic E.U. Instead, they implausibly promised that if Brexit were rejected, Britain \u2014 although it would then be without the leverage of the threat to leave \u2014 would nevertheless somehow negotiate substantially better membership terms than Cameron managed when Brexit was an option.<\/p>\n

Voters were not amused by the Cameron government\u2019s threat of what critics called a Punishment Budget<\/a> to inflict pain on pensioners (e.g., no more free bus passes) and others because Brexit might cause the gross domestic product to contract 9.5 percent and home prices might plummet 18 percent. Voters did not like being told that they really had no choice. And that it was too late to escape from entanglement in the E.U.\u2019s ever-multiplying tentacles. And that the very viscosity of the E.U.\u2019s statism guarantees its immortality.<\/p>\n

Voters chose the optimism of Brexit. Sixty years after Britain\u2019s humiliation in the Suez debacle, Britain has a spring in its step, confident that it will flourish when Brussels no longer controls 60 to 70 percent of the British government\u2019s actions. Britain was last conquered by an invading army in 1066. In 2016, it repelled an attempted conquest by the E.U.\u2019s nomenklatura<\/i> .<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though the stock markets are reeling and Scotland and Northern Ireland\u2013and maybe even London!\u2014 are considering leaving Great Britain, turning it into \u201cLittle Britain,\u201d others are congratulating the United Kingdom for achieving \u201cIndependence\u201d from the European Union. \u00a0Five more countries\u2013France, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Finland\u2013are now considering their own exits. \u00a0UPDATE: \u00a0Also Italy, Poland, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4609,782,4614],"class_list":["post-24523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-brexit","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain-leaves-european-union"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Britain's "Independence Day"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Though the stock 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