Brexit: Liberty Wins!

Wow! Brexit has won. Once again, the Diplomad general rule on polling holds true, "when 'polls are too close to call' the progressives are going to lose."

So many thoughts on Brexit and what it means, it will be hard to keep this post short and sweet.

First, the BBC. What was that all about? The sort of idiots who believed everything Ben Rhodes said about the Iran deal, or what Obama said about Obamacare, or Hillary said about anything and everything, must have cousins who run the BBC. That once venerable institution, once the world's reporting gold standard, is but a hack leftist/establishment/in-house organ with horrifically biased anti-"Leave" reporting and commentary. I, of course, knew "Leave" would win when the BBC kept saying the issue was "too close to call." If the Brexit vote has internal consequences, I hope one is the complete gutting of the BBC.

Last April, I wrote a few thoughts on Brexit. The gist of those was that the "Remain" side was making a mistake with the heavy use of (often bogus) economic stats. I saw the economic argument as basically a wash, and that,

the force driving the pro-Brexit movement is not solely or even mostly about economics, or finance, or currency exchange rates. It is about something much, much more important. It is about reclaiming the soul of Britain; preserving and restoring that which made Britain, notably England, one of the world's greatest countries, a nation of stunning consequence. It is about deciding whether the great British traditions and innovations that have made our modern world are worth saving or should be discarded. <...> The same people who so strongly support Britain's membership in the EU seem the same who oppose halting the foreign invasion. Now we see the Muslim hordes gathering just across the channel, champing at the bit to get over and enjoy the land of "the white dudes," before they destroy it, to do what Hitler could never. <...> [W]hat's driving the anti-EU movement in Britain is the need to save the country, or what's left of it. Perhaps without the EU and its courts and mandates, British common sense can prevail, and the UK be saved, or at least England--and if the Scots want to stay in the EU, they should have another referendum and swap London's "rule" for that of Brussels, that'll teach 'em.

I think that analysis stands.

If you look at how the vote was spread across the UK, you can see that in England and Wales  working and middle class areas most strongly favored "Leave." London, with its hordes of immigrants, low information students, "intellectual elites," and Euro-trash bankers, voted "Remain." Scotland, well, Scotland was Scotland; still not over Charles II, Scottish voters went with Continental Europe rather than with England. England and Wales carried the day for Brexit. We will see renewed calls for Scottish independence, and maybe for some sort of new arrangement between pro-EU Northern Ireland and pro-EU Ireland. All possible. None of it negates the blow struck for freedom and common sense by English and Welsh voters. If Scotland wants to go join a dying EU, let 'em. Let's see how they like Sharia law.

Back in May 2013, when discussing the right of national defense, I noted re Britain,

It seems that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps you can only push the English tribe so far. We perhaps are seeing the stirrings of a "backlash," in others words, of a demand that those who live in England, and enjoy its freedoms and benefits, comply with English law and tradition, or get voted and booted off the island. <...> [I]t appears, it seems, just maybe--the British, and the English, in particular, have begun to reach their limit. We see, for example, the rise of the UKIP--somewhat similar to the Tea Party movement here in the US--calling foul on the EU and its socialist/totalitarian pretensions and challenging the increasingly ossified Tory party to stand up for Britain.

I think that analysis also still holds. I would note that PM Cameron, the ossified leader of the ossified Tories, has announced his resignation in the wake of the defeat of the "Remain" campaign which he so ineptly championed with that mixture of arrogance and condescension one expects from an establishment politician. Good riddance.

As we see here in the USA, our political and intellectual betters do not want to deal with the real issues. They cannot bring themselves to see value in our culture and beliefs, and the need to defend them. Last May, I wrote,

Western civilization also has the right of "national defense," at least as much as does a tribe in the Amazon or on Papua. Just as the Japanese have the right to exclude whomever they wish from Japan--try immigrating there--so do the citizens of Australia, the UK, Canada, Israel, the US, etc. As I have said so many times that I am becoming a boring old hack, believing in the values of Western civilization does not mean that we have to write a suicide note for that civilization. We, for example, do not have to acquiesce to the jihadist invasion now underway in Europe solely because we believe in such human rights as religious tolerance. I repeat, the Magna Carta and the Constitution are not suicide pacts.

That holds, too.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Nigel Farage, who more than anybody else (even you, Boris) waged the battle against the EU. He fought incredible odds, underwent an unrelenting savaging by the establishment, and stuck to his guns even in the darkest days. He and others now need to watch out for the classic tricks of the progressive establishment to try to nullify the voters' will with legal battles and endless negotiations.

The international consequences?

We will see some turmoil in markets; investors don't like change, but that will sort itself out. Brexit should send a shiver down the spines of entrenched bureaucrats everywhere. Here in the States it will prove a plus for the Trump campaign--he, after all, endorsed Brexit, and understood what drove it. That, of course, in marked contrast to Obama and Clinton. 

The rest of the EU? Third strike and you're out: Greece, Islamic invasion, and Brexit.

We could and will see other countries begin to look for the exit path--e.g., Netherlands--and that will be bad news for the euro and so much else that has been built up around the monstrous "European Project" over the past few decades. Eastern Europe must be casting an even more nervous eye towards Russia, and the Germans and the French must question the role their leaders have played in the EU disaster. Lots of parts in motion right now. NATO? Potentially more important than ever. 

Brexit is a good thing.

More thoughts, more organized, a bit later.