If perhaps Brideshead Revisited is the greatest book in the English language, then Brexit Revisited is a less compelling story.
When we last left the melodrama a couple of months ago, British Tory (Conservative Party) Prime Minister Theresa May was slowly losing her political grip by proposing a soft Brexit, much to the disgust of most in her party and a majority of the British people who voted to economically and politically put hard distance between themselves and the unelected monstrosity that is the European Union. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson waits in the wings ready to turn her slightest stumble into his ascension to the premiership.
Those factors remain the same. What has changed is that there is a new player in the leadership sweepstakes, May’s own former Brexit Secretary, David Davis. In fact, the situation is so dire for May as I write Sunday night that this Wednesday she may have to meet the 1922 Committee, a Tory murder board of lean and hungry pols who are, as you read this, licking their chops towards a midweek feast. One even told her she should “bring her own noose” to the meeting. She is as of yet undecided upon her attendance.
If things go wrong there, or she ignores them, she could face a leadership vote in her own party and be toppled, as Thatcher was, without a single public vote being cast. Such are the parliamentary vagaries of British politics, much different and much more interesting than our system. And still, Boris Johnson waits in the wings, eyeing May as a lion would eye a gazelle.
And the kind mercies of her loyal political colleagues?
“[I won’t rest until she] is chopped up in bags in my freezer.” –George Osborne, former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“You realize it’s [the current government under May] a shi*show.” – Johnny Mercer, Tory MP from Plymouth Moor, not the American composer.
“[She’s a] lame cockroach who keeps going into an irradiated environment.”- Owen Patterson, Tory MP, and former Cabinet Minister.
Ah, at least the incivility there is clever.
But this viciousness pales in comparison with a curious phenomenon promulgated by elitists on both sides of the Atlantic. That is the whining sanctimonious refusal to accept election verdicts. We have seen how the childishly petulant left has kicked their little feet and held their breath hoping against hope they would wake up and the Harridan from Chappaqua would be president, and that their primal and wonderfully amusing meltdown on election night 2016 had never happened. But alas for these mentally disturbed reptiles, it did and will again. There is even a bit of an outside chance they may not take the House in a couple of weeks. But that’s for an upcoming piece.
How do our British elitist cousins manifest their own brand of non-reality? They are asking for a do-over, a mulligan, on the 2016 Brexit vote. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of them demonstrated in London to ask just that and generally pester decent people. EU flags waving and pushing no doubt expensive and pretentious prams, the assembled entitled and cosseted multitude vented their coddled spleens at the alleged bores, working people, and actual British patriots who voted for Brexit. The vote went against them. Ergo, Britain should negate the free and decisive previous Brexit vote of the public. To them that election decision is but a silly obstacle to be quickly overcome.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love elitists and am a proud one myself. Thurston Howell III and William F. Buckley, Jr. are my icons. I’d rather buy foreign made goods than many US made items, and know there is no such thing as champagne from anywhere else than that specific department of France. Now granted, my elitism is more of a cultural than of a material variety. I believe in as close to a pure meritocracy as is possible. Logically in such a society achievements of high excellence will be much lower in number (i.e., elite) than the normal mundane human level of performance. In other words, I believe success of most types should be celebrated and appreciated, not enfeebled and criminalized as in an egalitarian state. That’s my elitism. This attitude is probably a product of spending the majority of my 20s in conservative-led West Germany and the Thatcherite UK, in the U.S. Army and then in college. Influenced greatly by such, my supercilious psuedo-toffery knows no bounds. Except one.
And that is that any elitist who is honest and rather committed to liberty understands that in a free country the people through the ballot box should have the final say. Usually, they are more legitimately represented by populism than by political elitism. Hence our president. The practical aspect of this means that those British elites who marched, not their fellow marching Bolshie hordes, would better serve themselves and their nation by going home, uncorking a decent claret and putting on the Goldberg Variations. Preferably, the Glenn Gould recordings.
But no, they want their do-over, their mulligan and will make an unholy fuss until they get it or the rising tide and inexorable deadlined wave of Brexit washes them away in a fait accompli.
My prediction? They will get close but no banana. Brexit will go ahead as planned, with the outstanding Northern Irish customs border issue dealt with firmly, as May can’t afford to lose DUP votes in parliament. And in less than six months, maybe three, Johnson will be Prime Minister. Given his entertaining, cosmopolitan, and my kind of elitism demeanor, background, and views, that’s when the fun really begins.
