http://www.journalinquirer.com/opinion/chris_...tannia----br...
Recognizing that the objective of the European project, ever-closer
political and economic union, meant the destruction of democracy,
sovereignty, and the country’s very culture, Britain has voted in a great
referendum to withdraw from the European Union.
The majority arose from a remarkable combination of the free-market,
limited-government political right, the core of the Conservative Party, with
the working-class political left, the core of the Labor Party, both party
cores repudiating their leaderships as well as the national elites.
The result has enormous implications for the United Kingdom, starting with
whether it can remain united, since Scotland -- formerly the most industrious
and inventive province in the world, now perhaps the most welfare-addled --
probably will make a second attempt to secede, figuring that free stuff is
more likely to flow through continued association with the EU than with
England, which is growing resentful of the freeloaders up north.
But there are enormous implications for the world as well. The EU project
never has won forthright ratification by the people of its member states and
indeed has sometimes refused to accept rejection by them. Indeed, the whole
EU government is largely unaccountable. So the British vote quickly prompted
demands for similar referendums in France and the Netherlands, where
conservative populist movements have been gaining strength.
The politically correct elites are portraying the British vote as a
"xenophobic" response to free movement of labor across the EU and
particularly as opposition to the vast recent immigration into Europe from
the Middle East and Africa. This immigration is widely misunderstood as being
mainly a matter of refugees from civil war. In fact this immigration has been
mainly economic and it has driven wages down in less-skilled jobs while
increasing welfare costs throughout Europe, which explains the British
Laborite support for leaving the EU.
But it is not "xenophobic" to oppose the uncontrolled and indeed
anarchic immigration the European Union has countenanced. For any nation that
cannot control immigration isn’t a nation at all or won’t be one for long.
Since most immigration into Europe lately has come from a medieval and
essentially fascist culture and involves people who have little interest in
assimilating into a democratic and secular society, this immigration has
threatened to destroy Europe as it has understood itself. Britain has been
lucky to be at the far end of this immigration, but voters there saw the mess
it has been making on the other side of the Channel. They wisely opted to
reassert control of their borders.
Their example should be appreciated in the United States, which for
decades has failed to enforce its own immigration law and as a result hosts
more than 10 million people living in the country illegally and unscreened.
Fortunately few of this country's illegal immigrants come from a
culture that believes in murdering homosexuals, oppressing women, and
monopolizing religion. But the negative economic and social effects here are
similar to those in Europe and properly have become political issues.
The main lesson of Britain's decision may be an old one -- that nations
have to develop organically, arising from the consent of the governed and a
common culture, and that they can't be manufactured by elites. Having
defended its sovereignty and indeed liberty itself against Napoleon and
Hitler, Britain now has set out to defend them again. So rule, Britannia --
Britannia, rule thyself.
The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
-----
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer.
* * *
