“America First”?
All Eyes on England
Brits voted to leave the European Union, the 27 nations comprising the “United States” of Europe.
Boris Johnson, their daffy but scheming Prime Minister, engineered the departure, a slow motion train wreck called Brexit.
Why does Brexit matter here?
We have a front row seat showing what happens when a country willingly isolates from the world in the 21st-century.
They didn’t like all the “rules”, the free passage of E.U. member citizens and paying their dues.
So they took their toys and went home.
And then the real fun started.
Britain is heavily dependent on commerce with the E.U. and having left, they no longer enjoy free trade and the easy passage of goods both in and out of the country.
That means shortages in the shops and the inability for England to sell its wares in the E.U. market; it has been devastating for farmers, small businesses and others.
But that’s not the half of it.
Northern Ireland, part of Britain, shares a land border with Ireland proper and peace is threatened by the necessity to impose E.U. restrictions there.
A so-called “hard border” with checkpoints will exacerbate tensions which have largely abated since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended over thirty years of Northern Ireland Violence.
Ireland, part of the E.U., must enforce restrictions against a non-E.U. member, Britain.
But Britain wants a “soft border” with Ireland with easy checks. Northern Ireland remains part of Britain but trades differently with the E.U., a sort of Irish Sea Border arrangement.
All good, right?
Not on your life, the ever prickly Unionist Northern Irelanders are beyond furious at any suggestion that they are being abandoned by Mother England; there is no wrath like an Ulster Unionist scorned.
And they want to eat their cake and have it, too; embrace England but trade like a member of the E.U.
Irish Republican Armies and the Orange Order, some of them terrorists, are no doubt giddy at the prospect of a match to relight the bonfires of hate and division.
Meanwhile, back in England proper, there are food and gasoline shortages.
This week, Johnson was forced to call in the Army to provide drivers for fuel trucks.
(Driver shortages are another result of Brexit.)
In America, that would be viewed as the very essence of socialism, the nationalization of industry, or so they would say.
Troops driving fuel trucks and food shortages all around is not the result of some natural disaster but rather the retrograde politics of fear.
America first?
No, thank you.
