RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-root-for-boris-johnson-11575837887?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The outcome of Thursday’s British general election will have a profound bearing on the future of U.S.-U.K. relations. If Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson wins, Washington can look forward to a serious upgrade in its relations with London, not least because Mr. Johnson appears to enjoy a good personal accord with President Trump.

A victory for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose quasi-Marxist politics and visceral anti-Americanism have been very much in evidence during the election campaign, would create serious tensions in trans-Atlantic relations.

From Washington’s perspective, the most important consideration is the impact the election outcome will have on the fate of the Brexit negotiations. The Trump administration enthusiastically supports Britain’s plans to leave the European Union, as it means the U.K. would be able to negotiate new trade agreements with the U.S. without interference from the EU.

The protracted Brexit negotiations, which began after a 2016 referendum, have been seriously undermined by the previous Conservative government’s minority status in the House of Commons. Mr. Johnson’s first priority, therefore, is to seek a working majority, a feat not achieved by the Conservatives since former Prime Minister David Cameron secured a modest majority in the 2015 election. It soon disappeared after his successor, Theresa May, called an election in 2017. She expected to bolster her majority but lost it instead. That severely limited her ability to complete Brexit and cost her the premiership this summer. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/britains-election-stakes-11575841904?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Britons head to the polls Thursday for their most consequential general election since the 1970s. As with the 1979 vote that brought Margaret Thatcher to power, the outcome will shape Britain for a generation.

First and foremost, this is a Brexit election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is campaigning to restore democratic legitimacy after Parliament has spent three years trying to thwart voters’ 2016 decision to leave the European Union. He is asking the electorate to give him a majority to pass his divorce deal, which despite its flaws remains the best chance to deliver Brexit and liberate Britain to enter a new era.

Opinion polls suggest voters are giving Mr. Johnson credit for his Brexit leadership. He has won the blessing of Nigel Farage, whose Brexit Party isn’t running against Tories in many seats in order to avoid splitting the Leave vote. Mr. Johnson’s opponents have helped him, too, as Remain politicians struggle to explain why voters should revise their 2016 verdict.

This means that, unlike his hapless predecessor Theresa May, Mr. Johnson is finally giving voters a real choice: a plan that delivers Brexit, or a crop of muddled centrists and wet former Tories who won’t.

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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/elizabeth-warren-economic-plans-lessons-from-europe/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=top-stories&utm_term=fourth

It’s no model for what leftist schemes would create here.

A nationwide series of protests, some of them violent, is convulsing France. The proximate cause is pension reform, and the French are having a splendid time: In news photos, the protesters are positively beaming, and a recent BBC report described the mood, amid the arson and destruction of property, as “festive.”

I suspect that the American version of that will be less festive, when the time comes.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who as a columnist always has had a particularly unkeen sense of timing, in November attacked the “Europhobia” of centrist Democrats. “Going on about how terrible things are in France is a sure sign that you have no idea what you’re talking about,” he wrote. I do not think France is a particularly badly governed country, but the French are mad as hell about it, and surely their opinion must count for something.

If you are wondering where Professor Krugman is seeing all those centrist Democrats who were terrified of France in early autumn, it is helpful to know that the column is one long stage whisper at Steven Rattner, the Obama-administration Treasury official who wrote in the New York Times that Warren is the candidate for those who “want to live in France (economically).” Warren’s policies, Rattner wrote, would impose dirigiste European practices on U.S. firms. Rattner, who is after all an Obama guy, is generally supportive of New Deal–style welfare statism but fears Warren’s

intention to impose vast new regulatory burdens and to revamp the way business functions, which could have an even more negative effect on our economy. Many of America’s global champions, like banks and tech giants, would be dismembered. Private equity, which plays a useful role in driving business efficiency, would be effectively eliminated. Shale fracking would be banned, which would send oil and natural gas prices soaring and cost millions of Americans their jobs. And on and on.