England In Turmoil

In June of 2016 the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.  Chief among the reasons for leaving were hostility towards immigration, dislike of Brussels bureaucrats, concerns about retaining sovereignty, an anti-elite mood, a feeling of being left behind by globalization and a long history of Euroscepticism.

Sound familiar?  

Many people are equating BREXIT, and what is going on in Great Britain, with what is happening in the U.S. People want their country back!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2016

After the Brits shocked the world, Prime Minister David Cameron resigned soon thereafter.  Theresa May ascended to the office of Prime Minister.  Right out of the chute, May hired Obama lackies to “help” her Conservative Party write a platform to implement Brexit.

She has managed to take only baby steps.  Suspicion of Berlin and Brussels is what brought down Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago.  May (a Remainer) appears to be beholding to the financial sector, trade unions and the Germans instead of delivering what the people voted for.

President Trump could voice support for a “clean break” with Brussels during his visit to the United Kingdom and could also criticize the Chequers Plan which triggered the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, resigned this past Sunday saying, “Brexit is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

In his letter of resignation, he accused the Prime Minister of “reducing Britain to the status of an EU colony.”

At issue is the Chequers Plan, Theresa May’s “attempt” to strong-arm her Cabinet into backing a “softer” Brexit which would allow the UK to control tariffs and pursue an independent trade policy and continue to pretend it is within the EU customs territory.

The only serious suggestion must be a leadership change. No. 10 may have calculated that the Brexiteers do not have the numbers to win, but the reality of leadership contests is that they can spin out of control. Whatever path is taken, the Chequers proposals need to be overturned. If a further climbdown takes place on migration, as some expect, Brexit would indeed be a mockery and undermine the legitimacy of British democracy.

The British people voted to leave the EU not because they were tired of immigrants stealing their jobs, but because they were tired of European bureaucrats in Brussels, taking orders from Berlin, chipping away at the centuries-old British tradition of self-government.

The Chinese Invented Feng Shui After Emperor Tang-Woo Hit His Shin On A Dishwasher

Charles Moore, who covers politics for The Telegraph opined:

Mr. Obama’s most famous electoral message was “Yes, we can”. His electoral message to the British people is “No, you can’t”. 

If we want influence, security, free trade, democracy and the rule of law, we can get these things only by staying in the European Union, he informs us. We cannot contemplate living—as his own country so proudly does—as a wholly independent state. If we do, we “go to the back of the queue” in trade, he told the press conference last night. 

The president has spent most of his time in office neglecting old allies and seeking new ones, being chummier with Iran than Israel and with Castro than Cameron. [Emphasis mine]. 

He belatedly praises the network of alliances and programs—the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, NATO, the United Nations Security Council—which helped create the post-war order, but what he has actually done is to tiptoe away from NATO commitments, hoping that the EU will take up the slack.

Moore well remembers the firestorm The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer created when one his first acts as president was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.  Britons viewed the move as a snub, one of many I might add, to the special relationship our two countries have maintained throughout our history,

He said he took the sculpture of Britain's wartime leader out of his office, where it had been placed by George W. Bush, because “there are only so many tables where you can put busts, otherwise it starts looking a little cluttered.”  The White House originally denied that the bust had been removed and sent back to Britain, before admitting that it actually had. 

He insisted that he had not snubbed Churchill or the Brits, adding: '”In the residence, on the second floor, my private office is called the Treaty Room and right outside the door of the Treaty Room, so that I see it every day, including on weekends when I'm going into that office to watch a basketball game, the primary image I see is a bust of Winston Churchill.  It's there voluntarily, because I can do anything on the second floor. I love Winston Churchill, love the guy.”

The controversy over Churchill’s bust happened in 2009.  So why did the president feel compelled to address the matter now?  Seems London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, told London’s newspaper The Sun the bust’s removal was a “sign of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike for the British Empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

Obama finally admits to British Churchill bust removed because Oval Office had bad feng shui. https://t.co/KLRymVSWp9 #churchillbust

— PoliticalClownParade (@Carry_That_Load) April 23, 2016

Gangster President Obama threatens England with Fire and Pain if European Union vote goes against his savagely rapacious desires.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) April 22, 2016

Queen Elizabeth Refuses To Meet With The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer

Next month The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer is set to visit London in a move that is certain to infuriate British lawmakers.  Apparently, he is seeking to “fundamentally transform” Great Britain as he lobbies the UK against leaving the European Union.

June 23rd is the date for a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union.  In early 2015 the chances of BREXIT—Britain departing from the European Union—seemed remote. Today, largely because of Europe’s migration crisis and the interminable euro mess, the polls have narrowed. Some recent surveys even find a majority of Britons wanting to leave.

Without getting into the weeds, BREXIT is an abbreviation of “British exit”.  It refers to the in-out referendum to withdraw from the EU.  Great Britain has been actively renegotiating its relationship with Europe limiting the rights of immigrants to claim benefits and seize sovereignty from Brussels and return it to London.

Prime Minister David Cameron is channeling the infamous Neville Chamberlain in trying to appease Brussels.  The June referendum will be the first time in 40 years that British voters have had the opportunity to leave the European partnership.

“Why should President Obama tell the UK whether we should be part of a European superstate or a sovereign nation?  He should keep his comments, his views, to himself,” said Peter Bone, a Conservative UK Member of Parliament and supporter of BREXIT.

Ephraim Hardcastle, writing for The Daily Mail, offered this delicious tidbit:

The Queen refuses to come to London to meet President Barack Obama next month.  Instead, accompanied by his security circus, he’ll trundle to Windsor in his bomb-proof, seven-ton limo for lunch. 

He’s due to stand alongside the PM and urge Britain to stay in the EU.  “But he’d be well-advised not to give a pro-EU sermon over lunch after the row about the Queen supporting BREXIT,” says my source.

Why would the Queen put ol’ Jug Ears firmly in his place?  Could it be because he “cheaped out” when he gave her an iPod pre-loaded with photos of him and his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his 2009 Inaugural Speech?  Oh, and when Hardcastle refers to the president’s “security circus” don’t you just know he’s recalling the laughable moment “The Beast” limousine made the clang heard ‘round the world during a visit to Ireland?

NOTE:  I think we all know where the Queen’s loyalties lie, but Buckingham Palace is in a standoff with The Sun, one of Britain's most powerful newspapers, over a front-page article it published recently headlined, "Queen backs Brexit."

Grecian Formula

In its fifth year of recession and with an unemployment rate escalating above 22 percent, Greece’s election on Sunday, June 17, 2012 sought to avert an economic calamity in the debt-choked country.

The Grecian formula seems to be a proposal that would form a coalition government that is pro-Euro and continue austerity measures in return for bailout cash to save their bankrupt nation.

The new Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras said, “The Greek people voted today to stay on the European course and remain in the Eurozone…there will be no more adventures.”

“Today the Greek people speak. Tomorrow a new era for Greece begins,” Samaras said after voting in southern Greece.

The decision of nine million people will ripple far beyond the craggy tip of the Balkan Peninsula they inhabit.  An entire union of nations will be affected.

The Syriza Party, which had tapped into a vein of deep anger over the plunging living standards faced by many Greeks, had wanted to rip up Greece’s international bailout deals and roll back the new taxes, job cuts and pension cuts imposed in the last two years.

That plan will have to wait. The New Democracy Party has the first shot at forming a new majority in Greece’s Parliament.  If they don’t succeed, Syriza will doubtless go back to that poisoned well of rage.

The Greeks are under no illusion.  To keep bankruptcy at bay and have any chance of survival, the birthplace of democracy must accept the EU-IMF rescue loans and punishing austerity policies—it is little more than a choice between bad and worse.