An American’s Plea to the British: Please Brexit

I will start with several apologies.  As I’ve warned, studies prevent me from posting as fully and frequently as I would like, and this post will not be extensively linked or referenced.  Second, I fully realize that whether the UK leaves the EU is a decision for British to make, not this Texan.  So take this as a plea from the heart to my British friends.

The British, particularly the English, have given two great and related gifts to the world.  First, just being British.  Britain has a distinctive culture that is a delight to experience (at least for the most part).  Second, Britain has given to the world, perhaps more so than any nation, freedom under the rule of law.  (Yes, the UK perhaps excels the United States in that regard.  What was once was freedom under the rule of law in this country has grown from a British heritage, if a much altered one.)

Now, sadly, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and company jettisoned too much of these distinctives.  But a great deal still remains.   So why listen to Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron and throw the rest away by staying in the EU?

And do not let the Remain camp fool you.  The EU is no place for British culture or for freedom.  The EU is a profoundly anti-democratic institution and a pipeline for migrants who have no interest in furthering British culture.  Many really attack British culture and freedom as we’ve sadly seen.

And why would Britain put itself under the thumb of a German Chancellor who cares not one whit for the UK?  You suffered and fought a certain war to prevent that, and now you would do that voluntarily?

Now you may ask why should this nosy American care whether the UK stays British or stays in the EU. 

A big reason is fear.

I see my own country on the edge of throwing away its freedom, the rule of law, and the consent of the governed.  No matter who wins the election in November, we are close to making our Constitution a dead letter.  And we are close to being overwhelmed by people, foreign and domestic, who care not one whit for American civic culture or for American freedom under the rule of law, under our Constitution.

The irony is that the UK has no written Constitution, yet lately is doing a better job of following the rule of law than the U. S.

America used to be where people fled to be free.  If we go down the tubes, will there be anywhere left to flee?  I look around the world, and free countries are getting fewer and fewer.

And I have no confidence that the EU would allow Britain to remain either British or free.  Just the opposite.  The pattern of the EU has been to take more and more power to itself away from member countries, and that pattern will surely continue.  Already the EU is not a safe place, if you will, for freedom, particularly for free speech.

Another British gift to the world (if a very reluctant one) was a United States that was a beacon and a refuge for freedom.  I’m afraid us Americans are throwing that gift away.  We are becoming less a safe place for freedom as we tolerate and even welcome a New Totalitarianism and tear up more and more of our Constitutional rule of law under its dictates.

Will the UK remain a beacon and a refuge for freedom?  The UK was a buttress against totalitarianism under Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.  Will it be a buttress against a New Totalitarianism and against the noxious ideology of the EU that demands Britain cede democratic freedoms to unelected overseas bureaucrats?  

Please, the world needs more free places, not fewer and fewer.  The world needs a free, sovereign and British Britain. 

I cannot vote in the referendum and freely admit it is not my place to do so.  But I beg my British friends, for the sake of the U.K. and of the world, please vote Brexit.