Some of us have long predicted the breakup of the European Union. The Cousins appear to have just delivered the coup de grace.
While Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU,
England voted for independence. These people, with their unique history,
language and culture, want to write their own laws and rule themselves.
The English wish to remain who they are, and they do not want their
country to become, in Theodore Roosevelt’s phrase, “a polyglot boarding
house” for the world.
From patriots of all nations, congratulations are in order.
It will all begin to unravel now, over there, and soon over here.
Across Europe, tribalism, of all strains, is resurgent. Not only does
the EU appear to be breaking up, countries appear about to break up.
Scotland will seek a second referendum to leave the U.K. The French
National Front of Marine Le Pen and the Dutch Party for Freedom both
want out of the EU. As Scots seek to secede from the U.K., Catalonia
seeks to secede from Spain, Veneto from Italy, and Flemish nationalists
from Belgium.
Ethnonationalism seems everywhere ascendant. Yet, looking back in
history, is this not the way the world has been going for some centuries
now?
The disintegration of the EU into its component nations would follow,
as Vladimir Putin helpfully points out, the dissolution of the USSR
into 15 nations, and the breakup of Yugoslavia into seven.
Czechoslovakia lately split in two. The Donbass seeks to secede from
Ukraine. Is that so different from Transnistria splitting off from
Romania, Abkhazia and South Ossetia seceding from Georgia, and Chechnya
seeking separation from Russia?
After World War II came the disintegration of the French and British
empires and birth of dozens of new nations in Africa, Asia and the
Middle East. America returned the Philippine islands to their people.
The previous century saw the collapse of the Spanish Empire and birth of a score of new nations in our own hemisphere.
In Xi Jinping’s China and Putin’s Russia, nationalism is rising, even as China seeks to repress Uighur and Tibetan separatists.
People want to rule themselves and be themselves, separate from all
others. Palestinians want their own nation. Israelis want “a Jewish
state.”
On Cyprus, Turks and Greeks seem happier apart.
Kurds are fighting to secede from Turkey and Iraq, and perhaps soon
from Syria and Iran. Afghanistan appears to be splintering into regions
dominated by Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks.
Eritrea has left Ethiopia. South Sudan has seceded from Khartoum.
Nor is America immune to the populist sentiments surging in Europe.
In Bernie Sanders’ fulminations against corporate and financial
elites one hears echoes of the radical leftist rhetoric in Greece and
Italy against EU banking elites.
And as “Brexit” swept the native-born English outside of multiracial,
multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual London, populist-nationalist
Donald Trump and anti-establishment Ted Cruz swept the native-born white
working and middle classes in the primaries.
In Britain, all the mainstream parties – Labor, Tory, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National – supported “Remain.” All lost.
Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party alone won.
In the past six months, millions of Democrats voted for a 74-year-old
socialist against the establishment choice, Hillary Clinton, as
Bush-Romney-Ryan Republicanism was massively repudiated in the
Republican primaries.
As Trump said last week, “We got here because we switched from a
policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle
class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for
large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign
countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American
economy.”
Are you ready to Make America Great Again? Get your Donald Trump bumper stickers now at the WND Superstore
Yesterday, news arrived that in May alone, the U.S. had run a trade
deficit in goods of $60 billion. This translates into an annual deficit
of $720 billion in goods, or near 4 percent of our GDP wiped out by
purchases of foreign-made rather than U.S.-made goods.
In 40 years, we have not run a trade surplus. The most
self-sufficient republic in all of history now relies for its
necessities upon other nations.
What might a Trumpian policy of Americanism over globalism entail?
A 10 to 20 percent tariff on manufactured goods to wipe out the trade
deficit in goods, with the hundreds of billions in revenue used to
slash or eliminate corporate taxes in the USA.
Every U.S. business would benefit. Every global company would have an
incentive not only to move production here, but its headquarters here.
An “America first” immigration policy would secure the border, cut
legal immigration to tighten U.S. labor markets, strictly enforce U.S.
laws against those breaking into our country, and get tough with
businesses that make a practice of hiring people here illegally.
In Europe and America, corporate, financial and political elites are
increasingly disrespected, and transnationalism is receding. An
anti-establishment, nationalist, populist wave is surging across Europe
and the USA.
It is an anti-insider, anti-Clinton wave, and Trump could ride it to victory.
NWN: How long has it taken the multi -racial melting pot that is Boris Johnson to do a'volte-face' ? 48 hours ? On what criteria is Johnson 'British' ?
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I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe – and always will be