White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

The Future of Britain is on the Ballot

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By Llewellyn King

Long before our election in November, a much greater upheaval may hit Britain. Probably in late June, the country will vote on whether to stay in the European Union. Leaving is called “Brexit” in the British press.

While polls have consistently shown that voters favor Britain remaining a member of the 28-nation bloc, there are signs that things are changing. British business, which has until now seen its future as being in the EU, is beginning to rethink its support for British membership. A recent poll shows industry believing it could prosper out of the EU.

This is a big problem for British Prime Minister David Cameron. He has promised dramatic changes in Britain’s membership, which will be announced at the European summit next month.

Britain wants less-oppressive regulations and a change in immigration policy. It wants an end to what has been a fundamental part of the European structure: the freedom of movement between countries. In short: no more immigration to Britain from Europe.

It is a complex negotiation which Cameron believes he can win; particularly when Europe is in shaky shape after the economic crisis in Greece and from the surge of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Although Europe’s political elites may have to hold their refined noses, the chances are better today than ever that they would rather their unruly island neighbors stay in than further damage the European project by withdrawing.

Predictably some economists say that Britain will do just fine without Europe, while others see dire economic consequences.

When the referendum comes, it will be a free vote with about half of Cameron’s Conservative Party voting to withdraw. These are the rambunctious “Euroskeptics” that have bedeviled British elections for generations and have made the role of Conservative prime ministers particularly trying.

The opposition Labor Party is divided on a Brexit. But Labor has so imploded under the extreme leftist Jeremy Corbyn that it is likely to go along and lend its support — feeble though it is — to the forces wishing to stay in the EU.

The Scottish Nationalists will also support continued membership. They hope that if they break away from the United Kingdom, they will get succor from the EU.

But the forces for exiting the EU are powerful and articulate. They are emboldened by Europe’s problems and the fact that they will no longer be bound by the dictates of, as they say, “faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.”

The wild card in the referendum may be England’s wild man: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Now finishing his term as mayor of London, Boris Johnson is a lovable version of Donald Trump. He has gone from scrape to scrape and has come out ahead of the game. For instance, three years after having won a seat in Parliament in 2001, Johnson was sacked by the Tory leader at the time, Michael Howard, for allegedly lying over an affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt. Johnson called newspaper stories about the affair “an inverted pyramid of piffle.” He was also sacked from his editorship of The Spectator, where the piffle took place.

But being elected to higher office is such a compensation, so Johnson, a bicycle-riding, tradition-loving maverick got himself elected mayor of London. In this office he saved the iconic double-decker buses, presided over the 2012 Summer Olympics, and endeared himself to an even wider audience.

The British revere Johnson’s eccentricity and voted him back into Parliament in the last election. Now people talk openly of him being Cameron’s successor after the referendum.

Johnson has hedged his bets on British membership in the EU. Just this week he declared that he will not lead the “Out” forces, but he does not totally endorse the “In” forces.

Here is the possible scenario: Cameron has to produce a deal that satisfies some of the Euroskeptics and set a date for referendum. Then the vote. Then the hangover, one way or another. Then Johnson makes his move – unless some schemer, like the current Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, has not outmaneuvered the charming and brilliant Boris.

Cleverly Johnson has written a long political treatise comparing London to Athens, and leaving room for people to believe he has the qualities of Pericles, without actually claiming the great Greek’s mantle. Then, just to be safe, he has knocked off a highly laudatory biography of Churchill, which invites the idea that Johnson shares some of his hero’s traits.

This kind of effrontery makes British politics a perpetual night in the pub. Cheers! — For Inside Sources

Scotland and England: Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?

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What looked like a kind of harmless beauty contest, the vote on Scottish independence in September is shaping up to be something quite otherwise: the death struggle for the United Kingdom. The polls are showing a surprising narrowing between those who would vote for Scotland to become an independent country and those who would vote for it to remain part of the United Kingdom, dominated as it is by England.
 
Since the Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland have been one nation, but with important differences. For a start the Scots have maintained their own distinctive way of speaking, although it is unlikely that the Scots language can be revived or whether it should — you know when you are in Scotland. The country is predominantly Presbyterian with a substantial Catholic minority.
 
Scotland has its own legal system, based on Roman-Dutch law rather than English Common law, and it has kept alive the traditions of Scotland — sometimes enhanced by English commercial interest — such as the marketing of whisky, the celebrating of New Year, and the jokes about haggis.
 
The Scots always had their nationalists, including those who stole the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey on Christmas morning 1950, and took it back to Scotland. The 336-pound stone, according to one Celtic legend, was the pillow upon which the patriarch Jacob rested at Bethel, and for centuries was associated with the crowning of Scottish kings. Four months after the stone was stolen, it was returned to the abbey. And in 1996, the British government returned it to Scotland.
 
But Scottish nationalists have never posed a threat to the union with England; not that the Scots haven't always denigrated those living south of the border as “Sassenachs.”
 
In my experience, as someone brought up to respect Scotland’s traditions (its music, literature, and its brews and distilled spirits) the distinct disinterest of the two peoples in each other is quite dumbfounding.
 
The English will flock to the continent on their vacations, but not to Scotland. Once in Peebles, a town near Edinburgh, a friend asked if I was staying for a local masonic parade and festival. I asked if there would be a lot of English visitors. He replied: “I don't think so; they don't come here. And we're not very nice to them when they do.”
 
When my wife and I were planning our annual trip to Scotland, an otherwise well-traveled and erudite Englishwoman living in London asked us, “Why would you go there?” Think about how Canada is ignored in the United States.
 
Scotland is, in fact, a tourist treasure with great beauty, fabulous vistas and wonderful traditions, even if they get a periodic upgrading from the Scottish Tourist Board.
 
Probably the greatest period of harmony was ushered in by Queen Victoria, who liked Scotland a lot; after the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, she spent long periods in Balmoral Castle. Some even suggested she had a romantic relationship with her Highland manservant, John Brown. There are those who have suggested that if Queen Victoria had had the same affection for Ireland, it would not now be a separate country.
 
The present crisis has occurred because of the determination of two men: Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair believed in the “devolution” of power to the regions. He was warned against this by his predecessor, John Major, who was appalled at the idea. “Utter folly,” he called it.
 
Salmond believed in independence for Scotland; it had been his life's passion. He was ready and when Scotland was granted a legislature of its own by Blair's Labor government in 1998, he saw the chance and began to push for referendum.
 
Like most divorces this one won't be easy, if it happens. Just a little over 5 million people live in Scotland (64 million live in England), but it occupies one third of the land mass of the United Kingdom.
 
Then there is the question of borders, currency, and the status of the Queen. The Scots want to keep the pound and the Queen. But if Scotland votes to quit the union, England might say no: Our pound, our Queen.
 
The case for Scotland staying in the union is economic, as was the case for them being coerced to join in the first place. The case for separation is nationalistic.
 
The patron saint of Scotland is St. Andrew, and the patron saint of England is St. George. They have stood together in war and peace for 300 of history's most remarkable years – an empire, the Industrial Revolution, and two world wars.
 
Now they stand apart — at the opposite sides of an impending referendum. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,” as Robert Burns, poet and Scottish nationalist, wrote. The polls are not encouraging for unionists. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

London Murder May Move History

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The murder of a British soldier in Woolwich, the working-class district of London, may be one of those murders that move history. The repercussions will echo down through the years affecting British politics, immigration, attitudes to Europe, possibly the survival of the United Kingdom as now constituted and the social progress of Asian and African minorities there. Immigrants now comprise 11.9 percent of the population.

These things, which were in flux, may now transit to turmoil. And Prime Minister David Cameron's differences with his own Conservative Party could lead to his ouster, unless he can use the murder as a kind of call to order in his rebellious ranks.

There are two big but related issues that have already roiled British politics and now may be forced to a head. The first is immigration. Always a thorny issue for Conservatives, it has been front and center since a big victory in local elections this month by the upstart United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage.

Farage's platform is anti-immigration, not only from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean but also from the European Union. He calls for Britain to the leave the European Union and essentially seal Britain's borders against all comers.

UKIP's local government success led to backbench Conservatives — more than 100 of them — to seek an immediate referendum on Britain’s leaving Europe. They were joined in public support by Tory grandees, who had heretofore supported the prime minister.

One way or another, things will be harder for immigrants no matter when their families arrived in Britain. These divide essentially into longtime immigrant groups from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and eastern Europeans, allowed in as a result of European Union labor law.

There is also a sharp division between Muslim immigrants and those who practice other religions. Muslim immigration has grown to the point of domination in some areas – like Bradford, in the north of England, and Birmingham in the Midlands. Muslim immigrants — now 4.8 percent of the population, and Islam the second-largest religion after Christianity in the United Kingdom — have established states within their adopted state with Islamic education, very visible mosques, and a palpable sense of their homelands being where they came from ancestrally rather than where they live now.

The Internet and cell phones have made this duality easier to practice. Sadly, the Muslim community in the United Kingdom has prospered far less than the Hindu community, where millionaires and some billionaires abound.

British resentment of the Muslims extends to the treatment of women, halal slaughter of animals, instances of honor killings and many foiled terrorist plots since the subway bombing of 2005.

In Qatar, I ran into a young English Muslim woman wearing a veil and dressed in traditional Arabic clothing. Hearing her speak, I said: “Hi, you’re English.” She rounded on me, replying angrily that although she was born and raised in England that did not make her English.

Understandably, this active refusal to assimilate breeds resentment among the Anglos. The trouble is everyone of color is assumed to be Muslim in the eyes of the Anglos, and the working class in particular.

Hence the rise of right-wing extremists, like the skinheads and the fascistic British National Party, and the more seductive UKIP. The Labor and Liberal parties are sidelined for now, without the visceral appeal that the Tories feel they may ceded to the UKIP.

Meanwhile, there is another shadow on the horizon: Scottish nationalists may push their own referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom. Their leader, Alex Salmond, sees trouble in the south as opportunity in the north.
 
 
If things go really badly, Cameron could be seen in history as the prime minister who lost both Europe and Scotland – or rallied the country and saved the day. The murder in Woolwich, ghastly in its barbarity, will have consequences beyond that place. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

A Gale-Force Wind Called Thatcher

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If there had been no Margaret Thatcher, the Brits might have had to invent her. 

When she blew into the premiership like a gale-force wind off the North Sea, her island nation appeared to be sinking. The economy was a mess and trade union activism was strangling Britain.
 
In those days, the morning radio broadcasts listed the areas of “industrial action” — the prevailing euphemism for strikes, mostly illegal — as routinely as the weather. For example, “Traffic at Dagenham in Essex will be adversely affected by industrial action at the Ford plant.” Or, “Expect delays on the London Underground today because of industrial action on the Circle Line.”
 
Newspapers often weren't printed, trains slowed down, export orders delayed and power stations ran short of fuel. Flying to London was gamble on whether the air traffic controllers were peaceful that day. At one point, because of continuing strikes in the coal industry, the government put Britain on a three-day work week and shops were lit with candles. Shakespeare’s “sceptred isle” was a dark place.
 
The public blamed the government as much as it faulted the unions. Yet Britain remained committed to trade unionism and the rights of the unions were protected fiercely, in the way that the Second Amendment is now protected in the United States.
 
Edward Heath, who Thatcher deposed as the leader of the Conservative Party, had been powerless against the miners and their feared leader Arthur Scargill. When the Conservatives decisively won the election of 1979, Thatcher was unleashed. She said of Scargill, “Poor Arthur, he’s out on a limb and all I have to help him with is a chainsaw.”
 
But Thatcher did not break the unions; she simply brought them into the rule of law with the British equivalent of the U.S. Taft-Hartley Act. In a country that treasured unionism, that was a revolution.
 
Thatcher took no public prisoners. Matthew Parris a Conservative member of parliament in the Thatcher years, said she was curt with her own backbenchers and often feared by her ministers. Her sharp remarks cut: No one wanted it known how she had characterized them.
 
Her style in the House of Commons was brutal. It was as though she had brought a club to a fist fight. James Callaghan, leader of the opposition, said to Thatcher, “Congratulations. You’re the only man in your team.” Thatcher replied: “Well that’s one more than your team has.”
 
Thatcher said of her critics that if she walked on the water across the Thames River, they'd say that she did it because she couldn’t swim.
 
For all the harshness, there was a softer Thatcher.
 
I, along with other American journalists, was in the press gallery of the House of Commons for one of the bitterest debates of the Thatcher years. It involved the future of Westland Helicopters, a British company seeking foreign investment. Thatcher not only had to deal with an opposition that smelled blood, but also with a revolt in her own party lead by the defense secretary, Michael Heseltine, who thought he could unseat her. She beat back the opposition and savaged the Heseltine renegades.
 
Our U.S. press group had been invited to tea at the prime minister’s official residence, Number 10 Downing Street. The contrast between the bravura performance in parliament and the soft hostess who greeted us at her home was dramatic. She was indulgent of her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, who fell asleep, seated to her right and an older member of our team, Sterling Slappey, who also dozed off, seated on her left. Without stopping what she was saying, she gently shook these men awake to save them embarrassment. The gale had fallen to a zephyr.
 
Later, I was with her at a conference in Arizona where she exhibited both Thatchers. From the podium she was relentless, booming, a steel-on-steel kind of exhortation meant to rally conservative backsliders and pillory neo-socialists. Afterward, she acknowledged old friends and old campaigners in the audience with extraordinary memory and touching sentimentality. How great the change from major to minor.
 
She also attended every session at that conference, asking questions, taking notes and doing the work of a regular delegate. Even in retirement, Thatcher liked to work. “Men do the crowing, women lay the eggs,” she said once. Some of hers were golden. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Limbaugh Wouldn’t Like Costa Rica

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One is stirred to thank Rush Limbaugh. He has told us that if health-care reform is passed, he is going to pack his prejudices and leave the country, presumably in five years when the provisions of the hated “Obamacare” begin to bite.

Limbaugh’s putative destination: Costa Rica. Bravo. The man has taste. Democratic for decades, Costa Rica is the jewel of Latin America. It is in its way a paradise. Straddling the Central American isthmus between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, Costa Rica offers the most extraordinary diversity of fauna and flora, mountain and valley. Even the beaches are diverse, from the white sands of the Caribbean to the black volcanic sands of the Pacific.

But is this the place for Limbaugh, as he escapes the creeping socialism he fears is around the corner, if the Democrats can get their act together and pass a health-care bill? Sadly for Limbaugh, he may have to find peace elsewhere. Costa Rica will be too full of jarring realities for the Loud One.

Consider, with one-tenth of the U.S. per-capita income, Costa Rica manages to provide adequate health care to most of its 4.5 million people, and they have, at 79 years, a longer life expectancy than do Americans.

Worse for Limbaugh, the government funds the health-care system — although he will be able to buy private insurance that he can use in one of two private hospitals. To see all those healthy, long-lived people enjoying freedom, despite a massive government option, could be injurious to Limbaugh’s health.

Limbaugh’s affection for drug companies may also be challenged, making his exile life a living hell. Drugs can cost up to 80 percent less than they do states-side.

But there other disquieting things that Limbaugh’s research overlooked. General Limbaugh was a staunch believer in the therapy of invasion, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a favorite of Dick Cheney; and while the latter was vice president and warmonger in chief.

So what is a man like Limbaugh to do in a country that has no army? Not one person with a rifle.

So what great service has Limbaugh’s possible defection done? It has forced us to look around the world for a new home for our greatest broadcaster and to see how far state medicine has gone in rotting the fiber of otherwise great nations.

Limbaugh made everyone look, from the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” to La Prensa. Looking for a new home for Limbaugh is the pastime of the moment — and it is not easy.

Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Iceland are out, out, out, out. We cannot send a national treasure to these infamous places, struggling under the yoke of socialist medicine. Much of the rest of Latin America leans toward government provided medicine, even if delivery is spotty.

Our man needs a home of limited government, widespread gun ownership and medicine for those who can afford it. Limbaugh must turn his eyes from mamby-pamby nanny states like Costa Rica to robust lands, where people do not expect the government to provide answers and do not look to it.

Somalia quickly rises to the top of the heap. No government, no regulation, universal gun ownership and no socialized medicine.

Then, there is Iraq. Pasha Limbaugh might fit right in. He has done more than his bit for the Iraqis, bringing them the wonders of democracy and cruise missiles. He could report back to Dick Cheney regularly on what has been wrought there. A one-man truth squad, checking on the mainstream media and its penchant for negative news.

Nah. Limbaugh is a rich man with no known linguistic skills. He would be happier in London. There, he could handle the notorious National Health Service — which the Brits love to hate — by listing its failings in a blog. No need to mention that any politician who suggests repealing it would be thrown into outer darkness.

No worries. Limbaugh knows the power of a horrifying anecdote. Britain frowns on gun ownership, but then exiles must assimilate.

Breath easy, Costa Rica.