The referendum result was perhaps the biggest-ever vote of confidence in the United Kingdom, its past and its future. But the British establishment doesn’t seem to share that confidence and instead looks desperate to cut a deal, even if that means staying under the rule of Brussels. Looking at this from abroad, it’s baffling: the country that did the most to bring democracy into the modern world might yet throw away the chance to take charge of its own destiny. ...
The EU’s palpable desire to punish Britain for leaving vindicates the Brexit project. Its position, now, is that there’s only one ‘deal’ on offer, whereby the UK retains all of the burdens of EU membership but with no say in setting the rules. The EU seems to think that Britain will go along with this because it’s terrified of no deal. Or, to put it another way, terrified of the prospect of its own independence.
Mind you, even a bad deal is better than extending the Brexit deadline. Getting out of the proto-imperial European Union is the important thing right now and any details can be amended in the future.
But I don't understand the British fear of leaving even without a deal. All you have to do is look at the eagerness European governments express in having trade deals with rogue Iran. Do the British really think European states couldn't be picked off one by one to get trade deals with the far larger Britain, with the fifth largest economy, which is also critical to the continent's defense capacity?
If the European apparatchiki won't come to an agreement with Britain about leaving the EU, may I suggest a rough draft for the British to issue unilaterally, beginning "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth ..."
That approach doesn't work too badly at all.
