A British Exit from the EU

There’s an aspect of so what to the question: what would actually change if the Brits vote to go their own way in a few weeks?  One set of answers involves British influence on the continent or within the EU.

[I]f the British do vote for Brexit and then have to trade with the EU, the UK would in fact find itself isolated with very little influence over regulatory standards in the single market.

Great Britain already has very little influence over those regulatory standards: look, for instance, at the hue and cry from the rest of the EU over how the British comport themselves, and regulate others, in London’s financial markets.  Also, from outside, the British would be utterly free to set their own market regulatory standards without interference or “help” from their Continental betters.

It’s the same with welfare programs and immigration generally.  Although the British do fare quite a bit better here—as part of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s pre-British exit (Prexit?) negotiations with the EU, he won concessions (not enough, some would say) regarding the amount of British welfare payments would be paid to migrant (not immigrant) workers and their stay-at-home (country) families.  But the French already are up in arms over English impertinence at not letting immigrant/refugees to flow across the channel quickly enough to suit France.

Neither of those problems would be any worse with a British exit, and the British would be in absolute control over them were they to go their own way.

The upshot looks as though there is, indeed, a what to the so what—and it favors a British exit from the EU.  Which, in addition to giving Great Britain a great deal more flexibility and complete national sovereignty, would restore the British to their historical role of power broker among hegemon wannabes on the continent.

That last isn’t all bad for the British or for the continent.

Establishment vs Anti-Establishment

Let’s review the bidding.  The Republican Party has been upended in the present Presidential election cycle.  Establishment candidates like Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee and established Tea Party and Tea Party-ish candidates like Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, and Ted Cruz all have been defeated by an avowedly anti-establishment candidate, the all but formally nominated Donald Trump.  Even the Party’s libertarian candidate was roundly defeated across the primaries.

The Democratic Party has been nearly as roundly upended, even though it only had the diversity to put up just two candidates.  Socialist candidate Bernie Sanders, running in the Democratic primaries on anti-establishment imperatives just as avowedly as Trump…is still running, even though he has a very narrow path to the Democrats’ nomination.  Establishment candidate Hillary Clinton has been dragged far to the left, as has the entire Democratic Party, away from their establishment roots by Sanders’ effectiveness, durability, and his farther left positions.

Over the weekend, the Libertarian Party selected their President and Vice President candidates, Gary Johnson and William Weld, respectively—two established governors.

The two establishment parties are putting up, or are about to put up, anti-establishment candidates, and the party on the outside looking in while claiming to be fundamentally anti-establishment, has decided to run an establishment ticket.

Some have suggested that this campaign season is operating under different rules.  It sure is.