https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/12/31/brexit-for-real-this-time/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-issue&utm_term=first
The Conservative-party electoral win puts an end to years of attempted sabotage
Here are two quotes about Brexit. I will tell you whom they are from, but try to guess the date.
The first is from the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt: “Brexit will now happen. . . . The EU must now focus on building a new close, fair and lasting partnership with Britain. It is in our common interest.”
The second quotation is from the U.K.’s former Conservative deputy prime minister and fanatical pro-EU campaigner, Lord Michael Heseltine. “We’ve lost. We have to face up to that. We’re going to leave the European Union.”
Neither statement is in itself remarkable. The sole remarkable point is the date of each of these statements. Neither was issued on June 24, 2016, the day after the British people voted in a referendum by a majority to leave the European Union. The first quote — from Verhofstadt — was tweeted out on December 13, 2019. The second — from Heseltine — comes from an interview he gave on December 14 of the same year. That is, both came in the immediate aftermath of Boris Johnson’s huge 80-seat-majority win in the British general election of December 12, 2019.
In most regards the result of that election has caused unalloyed celebration for people on the political right.