From day one, the UK has schemed to gain all of the benefits but sustain none of the burdens of EU membership. Specifically, it has used “opt-outs” to remain a veritable island unto itself (e.g., exploiting the single market while denying the free movement of people, which member states are otherwise obligated to allow).
I’ve been decrying the UK’s have-cake-and-eat-it-too agenda for years — as “A Dead EU Constitution as a ‘New Treaty’ Is Still a Dead EU Constitution,” November 13, 2007, affirms. This is why the only silver lining I see in this Brexit fiasco is that European leaders are finally calling out the UK:
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has dismissed Boris Johnson’s proposal that Britain might enjoy access to the European single market and restrict immigration at the same time, telling German MPs the UK would enjoy no special favours.
‘We will make sure that negotiations will not be carried out as a cherry-picking exercise. There must be and there will be a palpable difference between those countries who want to be members of the European family and those who don’t,’ she said.
(London Guardian, June 28, 2016)
All too belated, but still I say: hear, hear!
Concede, Bernie! Resign, Jeremy!
Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are fast disabusing me of what little regard I had left for politicians. Here, in part, is the admittedly qualified praise I heaped upon them last year in “Hail, Jeremy Corbyn! The Bernie Sanders of British Politics,” August 17, 2015:
I am convinced that Corbyn’s popularity is rising there for the same reason Bernie’s is here: Both upstarts are championing policies that provide the starkest contrast in the politics of their respective countries in a generation. This is especially the case on issues like immigration, income inequality, racial injustice, and the corrupting influence of money in politics…
But I am sensible enough to appreciate that, while Corbyn stands a far greater chance of winning his party’s leadership than Bernie does of winning his party’s nomination, neither one stands a snowball’s chance in Hell of being elected leader of his country, respectively.
Sure enough, Bernie is now a lame duck candidate. Hillary has been duly declared the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Yet he refuses to concede:
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders promised in a video address on Thursday night to continue his political revolution, declining to concede the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton despite losing a majority of votes to his rival.
Still, he vowed in his video address to do whatever he could do to help Clinton defeat Donald Trump in a general election, promising to work with her to ‘transform the Democratic Party.’
(TIME, June 14, 2016)
And Corbyn is now the most feckless and compromised party leader in the history of British politics. His own Labour ministers blame him for doing so little to help Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron carry the day for the UK to remain in the EU. Yet he refuses to resign:
A motion of no confidence in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been passed by the party’s MPs.
The 172-40 vote, which is not binding, follows [nearly 40] resignations from the shadow cabinet and calls on Mr Corbyn to quit.
Mr Corbyn said the ballot had ‘no constitutional legitimacy’ and said he would not ‘betray’ the members who voted for him by resigning.
(BBC, June 28, 2016)
Evidently, Bernie and Jeremy are convinced that the grassroots movements they led were more about advancing their respective political careers than championing any political cause. Only this explains why they seem to have no qualms about discrediting these movements in a vain attempt to hold onto (establishment) power – with all of the professional perks and media attention that entails.
Frankly, Bernie should have emulated the way Hillary conceded to Barack in 2008 by conceding to her weeks ago. And Jeremy should emulate every other compromised party leader, including Margaret Thatcher, Ed Miliband, and David Cameron, by resigning today.
Interestingly enough, here is how Cameron, rising with the moral standing he earned by standing down on Friday, spewed unbridled contempt at Corbyn during Prime Minister’s Question Time earlier today:
It might be in my party’s interest for him to sit there, it’s not in the national interest and I would say, for heaven’s sake man, go.
(Huffington Post, June 29, 2016)
Except that the only rise he got out of Corbyn was a more acute expression of abiding cluelessness and smug self-righteousness.
Alas, each man’s refusal to do the decent thing shall redound to his eternal shame.
Related commentaries:
A dead EU constitution…
Brexit: Britain exits…
Hail, Jeremy…