RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/brexit-theresa-may-march-brutal-month/

March has seen the unraveling of the Brexit process and the ruin of Theresa May.

When Harold Macmillan became Britain’s prime minister, or so the story goes, a young reporter asked what would decide his government’s course. Macmillan’s reply? “Events, dear boy, events!” But Theresa May’s government will not be remembered for decisive events. Rather it will be remembered for a series of failures that led to the most catastrophic non-event in recent British history — Brexit.

As you know, Britain was scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29. The country voted to leave in a 2016 referendum. March 29 was supposed to be a decisive, historic event. Ever since Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty was triggered two years ago, the main political players all committed to it. And yet cometh the hour, cometh no Brexit. . . .

March 1: Theresa May’s former chief of staff told the BBC that the prime minister always saw Brexit as a “damage-limitation exercise.”

March 4: Theresa May was accused of “bribing MPs” in “a desperate measure to buy votes” in the form of a £1.6 billion fund for constituencies that voted Leave.

March 8: Theresa May warned that if her deal was rejected by Parliament for a second time, then “we may never leave at all.”

March 12: The blunt legal advice of Britain’s attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, advised members of Parliament that the legal risks of May’s deal, which was rejected by a historic margin in January, remained fundamentally the same. In other words, the deal on the table would keep the U.K. on the EU’s regulatory leash and would force Northern Ireland to heel.

https://jiss.org.il/en/mansharof-european-appeasement-of-iran-endangers-national-s

The EU’s insistence on preserving the nuclear agreement with Iran and its persistent efforts to establish a mechanism for evading American trade sanctions are encouraging Iran to escalate its subversion throughout Europe.

The European Union’s current policy is to preserve the nuclear agreement with Iran – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – even though the American administration, led by President Donald Trump, has withdrawn from it. Ever since the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in May 2018, Europe has been striving to devise an economic mechanism that will enable it to evade secondary American sanctions and continue, and even increase, the volume of its trade with Iran. Despite these prolonged and intensive efforts, the EU has been unable to create such a mechanism, due to the many difficulties involved.While the EU and Iran agree on the necessity for the nuclear deal, the EU opposes other aspects of Iranian activity that Khamenei has declared are red lines for Iran. The EU opposes the Iranian effort to upgrade the range and accuracy of its missiles, and calls for restrictions on Iran’s missile program. Britain recently formulated a program of sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program. Implementation of this package depends, however, on the EU’s consent, which appears unlikely at the present time.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019

By the time you read this, you will know whether Brexit has or has not happened. And if it has not—either through postponement or because Theresa May’s Brexit-in-Name-Only traps Britain under EU control indefinitely—then Brexit may never happen. It may seem odd to argue therefore that even so Brexit could be one of two events this spring—the other being EU elections in May—likely to accelerate Europe’s drift towards turmoil.

The reason is that frustrating Brexit would almost certainly stimulate more hostility and conflict than simply getting on with it. Contrary to what Remainers claim, there wasn’t much of either during the referendum campaign and the first year afterwards. The driving force of Euroscepticism was the feeling that though the EU’s supranational institutions may have suited continental Europe, they were too remote, bureaucratic and undemocratic to suit the Brits. Most Eurosceptics admired much of what the EU had achieved and liked changes such as the right to live throughout Europe.

That relaxed patriotism began to change to anger in response to the hostile remarks about Britain to which EU leaders gave vent in the last year. If the country is now kept inside EU structures against its democratic will, powerful anti-EU political sentiment will grow in British politics. It would be directed not only against the EU but also against those who have blocked or reversed Brexit. Brexit betrayed would dominate UK politics indefinitely.

Thus the Brexit paradox (one of many). Reversing Brexit was intended to restore stability, but in fact it would aggravate instability. Something similar can be foreseen for the European elections.