Elections

The US Election – A Step Forward for Liberty?

/ Duncan Whitmore / 3 Comments

The US Election – A Step Forward for Liberty?

By Duncan Whitmore

At the time of writing, the mainstream media is ploughing ahead with its coronation of Democrat candidate Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, even though, officially, the race still hangs in the balance. Incumbent Donald Trump has refused to concede, alleging fraud and other irregularities in the balloting process that happened to affect a handful of key swing states. Such allegations are likely to result in a series of forthcoming court battles prior to the formal convening of the Electoral College.

Whatever the outcome of this election, enough is already known to make some preliminary remarks concerning the impact it might have on the near future.

The most important aspect – another blow to the ailing polling industry – is that there has been no grand repudiation of the Trump phenomenon. Four years ago, half of the US electorate voted for the man who railed against the liberal/leftist/globalist establishment; and four years later that half has not only refused to budge an inch but has, in fact, added to its ranks another ten million voters. Contrary to the narrative of his supposed racism and white supremacy, Trump also increased his share of black and Latino voters.

All of this is comes in spite of (or perhaps because of) the full weight of the establishment and big tech social media doing everything it could to discredit the legitimacy of the Trump presidency (Russiagate, impeachment etc.) while throwing in its lot with the Biden camp. Continue reading →

A Brief Word on Brexit

/ Sean Gabb / 15 Comments

A Brief Word on Brexit
Sean Gabb
1st February 2020
(Published in The Libertarian Enterprise, 2nd February 2020)

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Yesterday evening – that is, the 31st January 2020 – at 11pm GMT, my country left the European Union. We did so after four years of heated and often hysterical argument. Nothing much seemed to have changed this morning. I went out shopping, to see the same people buying the same things at the same prices. Since we are now in a transition period, lasting till the end of this year, in which we remain within the Single Market and subject to the rules of the European Union, it would have been odd if anything visible had changed. Yet, if nothing visible had changed, one very important thing has changed. Continue reading →

Leave, Actually – What the Election Means

/ Duncan Whitmore / 3 Comments

Leave, Actually – What the Election Means

By Duncan Whitmore

“Tidings of Comfort of Joy” – so heralded the front page of The Daily Telegraph during their vision of Boris Johnson’s election victory descending from heaven with a chorus of angels. Certainly the magnitude of Johnson’s achievement is difficult to overstate. Not only has he propelled the Conservatives to an impressive parliamentary majority by robbing Labour of seats in its traditional working class heartlands; he has also, in a few short months, purged the Tories of their wrangling over Europe which has plagued each of their party leaders since Margaret Thatcher. For libertarians, however, while the result of last Thursday’s poll brings much comfort, the joy may have to be put on ice for a while.

There is comfort in the fact that, for the third election in a row – two general, one European – the British people have reaffirmed their 2016 decision to leave the European Union. No longer can dyed-in-the-wool Remainers claim that the electorate did not know what they were voting for, given that the precise form of Brexit was there for all to see in the text of Johnson’s withdrawal agreement. In the end, the possible split of the Leave vote between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party failed to materialise. Instead, as Nigel Farage intended, his party contributed to the fall of Labour in working class constituencies while the Tory vote remained intact. In some of the most surprising Tory victories – for example, in Durham Northwest, Blyth Valley, Bassetlaw, Bishop Auckland and Bolsover (where Dennis Skinner was unseated after nearly fifty years) – the spoils from Labour losses were parcelled out between the Brexit Party and the Tories, allowing the latter to accomplish anything between narrow and landslide victories over Labour. Although, according to Wednesday’s Times, some studies have claimed that the Brexit Party actually deprived the Conservatives of around twenty further seats, this is no bad thing. For in spite of gaining only 2% of the vote nationally and no seats, Farage’s combination of help and hindrance to the Tories has paid off by decimating the prospect of any parliamentary “Remainer” alliance while also neutering Conservative complacency. Of course, the precise unfolding of Brexit – i.e. the final form of Johnson’s withdrawal agreement and the eventual results of negotiations over the trade deal – remains to be seen. But the prospect of a second referendum leading to the outright cancellation of the decision to leave has finally been buried. Continue reading →

How to Deal with Jeremy Corbyn

/ Sean Gabb / 6 Comments

How to Deal with Jeremy Corbyn
Sean Gabb
(Published in The Libertarian Enterprise  on the 3rd November 2019)

One of my Books
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The Conservatives made two big mistakes in 2017. The first was noticed at once and will not be repeated. This was having Theresa May as their leader and her friends in charge of the campaign. Its effect was similar to pushing a wax effigy about on wheels and stopping it every so often to play pre-recorded and usually malevolent platitudes. Boris Johnson is an undoubted human being, and he knows how to say what people want to hear. Continue reading →

Brexit: Check or Checkmate?

/ Sean Gabb / 7 Comments

Brexit: Check or Checkmate?
Sean Gabb
(Published in The Commentator on the 24th September 2019)

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I see no point in denouncing today’s judgment of the Supreme Court, which has ruled the prorogation of Parliament “unlawful.” Granted, this is not a court of law so much as a committee of political activists. Granted, its judgment goes against centuries of convention and judicial precedent that matters of high politics are not allowable subjects of litigation. But we are where we are. All that surprises me is that the Remainers are so committed to stopping Brexit that there is no part of the Constitution they are not prepared to feed into their political shredding machine. What I will do instead is to ask what the Government can reasonably do next.

My answer is that I am not sure. Three weeks ago, I suggested using the Civil Contingencies Act to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. After today, this is no longer an option. Three weeks ago, the dissolution would have been challenged in court. But the Remainers would have been arguing against an appeal to the people. Before any action could make its way to the Supreme Court, the campaign would already have begun. Try that now, and any court in England would apply today’s ruling in half an hour. There would be an injunction against the Government before the writs of election could be issued. Continue reading →

Trump, Brexit and Leftist Delusions – A Taste of Things to Come?

/ Duncan Whitmore / 8 Comments

Trump, Brexit and Leftist Delusions – A Taste of Things to Come?

By Duncan Whitmore

Over the weekend Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally concluded his investigation into the possibility of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia in the run up to the 2016 presidential election. A summary of the findings released by Attorney General William Barr cleared Mr Trump of the allegations, thus ending a wrangling, two year process that has seen a number of Trump aides prosecuted for peripheral charges but nothing that smacks of being in bed with “the enemy”.

Over here in the UK, final frustration with the quagmire of the EU withdrawal process on the Remainer side has led to a petition to revoke Article 50 receiving a record breaking five million signatures, while a “People’s Vote” march in London on Saturday apparently attracted more than one million attendees – both dubious figures, incidentally. Thus, we are now expected to believe that the “will of the people” has turned against a Brexit that never could have been anything other than a complete, unmitigated disaster.

All of these events represent, on both side of the Atlantic, the childish attempts by the leftist-liberal elite to block out of their minds the possibility that maybe – just maybe – their vision of globalisation, open borders, multiculturalism and ever greater degrees of economic control in the hands of multinational institutions really isn’t what millions of their fellow countrymen and women wanted. That may be Trump really did get elected to office fairly and squarely, and it was not a foreign-orchestrated stitch up; that may be the British people didn’t just swallow a bunch of “lies” from the official Leave campaign, nor was their vote for Leave, to quote Lord Adonis, a “populist and nationalist spasm” rather than the manifestation of a long, deep seated antipathy towards the EU that has been bubbling under the surface since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty.  All of these charades by those on the losing side have been nothing more than exercises in coating themselves in yards of bubble wrap – postponing the day when they have to step out of fantasy into reality, and realise that their visions of a world order that seemed so secure prior to 2016 are, in fact, crumbling around them. Continue reading →

Theresa May: A Study in Bare-Faced Wickedness

/ Sean Gabb / 7 Comments

Theresa May: A Study in Bare-Faced Wickedness
by Sean Gabb
21st November 2018

Because I am writing about the European Union, I shall be neither surprised nor upset if the majority of my British readers go straight for the delete button. I write near the end of a week of fierce and increasingly unanimous denunciation of the Draft Agreement the British Government has “negotiated” for our withdrawal. However, more than half the people on my mailing list live outside the United Kingdom, and some of these have asked me to explain to the best of my ability what is happening. Here is the briefest summary I can manage that still makes sense. Continue reading →