The Battle of the Brexit

(Photo credit: The Guardian)

June 24, 2016. American has awakened to welcome a new member to the league of independent nations. After 240-years, Great Britain has emulated its Yankee cousins and voted to claim its independence from the European Union’s economic shackles.
Will it work?

(Photo credit: PrisonPlanet.com)

The nattering nabobs of negativity, like global vampire George Soros, are already forecasting doom and gloom for the Brits. The master EU-puppeteer wrote in The Guardian earlier this week, “…the Pound will plummet, along with your living standards. The only winners will be speculators,” which 58% of Brit’s apparently are.

US President Barack Obama characteristically quipped the UK could “go to the back of the queue” when it comes to trade with America. By the time the dust settles from this historic Brexit vote, he’ll be mercifully out of office. Back of the line, Barack.

Did Great Britain take a cue from America’s brash bid for Independence in 1776? If so, they should also recall that the process of freedom didn’t happen overnight. Indeed, the concept of negating taxation without representation first began to congeal in the colonies with the Tax Stamp Congress of 1765. Events in the following 11-years leading up to the Declaration of Independence were brash, bloody, and decidedly anti-British. 

The bold momentum of America continued to push forward, wringing out a national Constitution first agreed to in 1781 as the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.”  The freedom experiment continued to evolve into the first Constitution in 1788, and those first pesky ten Bill of Rights were added in 1791…15-years after American’s essential Brexit declaration.

Point being—the first battle of independence, the vote to leave the European Union, has been won. Now begins the Battle of the Brexit—how to move forward and operate out from under the umbrella of the EU. 

(Photo credit: Four-bears.weebly.com)

Sir Winston Churchill is famously quoted for his “never give in” speech, delivered in October 1941 to a group of students at Harrow, his boyhood school (from which he nearly flunked out). Note the similarities to contemporary sentiment:

“…we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months—if it takes years—they do it…”

“…never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy...”

(Remember, Churchill was addressing an England that had been under attack by the Nazi’s for the previous ten months. He knew there were still some difficult times to come for his country.)

“Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days—the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”

If Churchill is spinning in his grave over the Brexit poll, it’s probably only to shift positions so that he might salute the valiant voters who decided on Thursday that ‘enough is enough,’ and it’s time for ‘no taxation without representation.’ 

The next Battle of the Brexit won’t be easy. But will be rewarding.