Could Brexit Be Confounded at the 11th Hour? – New York Sun

A youthful Benjamin Disraeli, failing once more to become a Member of Parliament, told a gathering of Conservative supporters that he was neither disheartened nor felt like a beaten man. He was used to it and, waxing philosophical, told them he was like the Italian general who, enjoying victories in old age, explained it was because he had always been beaten in his youth.

Brexiteers can empathize. Despite winning the 2016 referendum on the question of leaving the European Union, the last four years have been exasperating: Dissembling from then prime minister Theresa May. Obstruction from a Europhilic bureaucracy. And willful defiance from MPs, who prefer to side with the EU rather than the British electorate.

The Brexit cause is positioned much like the young Disraeli. Is it fated to experience another defeat on the road to independence? Or, after years of disappointment, is the promised land of liberty in sight?

A number of factors caution favor. First among them is the character of the UK chief negotiator, David Frost. He is a steadfast advocate of a meaningful Brexit and is more than a match for his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier. Earlier this summer Mr. Frost fired an unmistakable broadside against EU pretensions: UK sovereignty, over our laws, our courts, or our fishing waters, is of course not up for discussion.

Fortunately for Mr. Frost and Brexit, EU officials are their own worst enemy. Their intransigence in the face of Britains adamant insistence for independence is proving counter-productive. Respecting territorial fishing waters, EU trawlers take half their catch from British jurisdiction, taking three times as much fish as the UK industry does in EU waters. Without a deal, this discrepancy ends.

EU demands for regulatory alignment mock the principles of UK self-government. Brexit was fought on the issue of economic sovereignty, based on competitive tax policy and legislative flexibility in aid of domestic industry. The stated goal of a level playing field nullifies parliamentary responsibility. Just as galling are proposals to have the European Court of Justice take the place of a neutral arbiter of any trade disputes in a future UK-EU trade deal.

Nor should the effects of Covid on the continent be ignored. With productivity falling precipitously in major countries like Germany (10.1%), France (18.9 %), and Spain (22.7%), EU leaders are desperate to reboot their economies. Britain, though, is no less vulnerable, with its decline comparable to its European competitors, at 20.4%.

Fortunately, the UK is not wanting for commercial partners. Britain is on course to agreeing multiple trade agreements with at least four countries Australia, New Zealand, Japan and, more significantly, America focused on free trade and lower tariffs. Only EU obligations, that expire in December, stand in the way.

And unlike the repeated failures to get a flawed Withdrawal Agreement passed by Parliament in the early months of 2019, a deadline inserted in the eventual agreement for a transition extension by June 30, has passed. Brexit or Bust.

Yet this is a double-edged sword. With no possibility of an extension to ease deadlocked negotiations, Britain may feel pressure to agree to humiliating terms in order to seal a deal. This despite repeated claims that absent a draft agreement by summers end, the UK would switch its focus from the EU to the global trading market. There are other hurdles, too.

Principally, Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The bravura of lets get Brexit done, based on his putative libertarian leanings, has been replaced by vacillating policy toward more government intervention and nanny-state oversight.

Conflicting government policy on EU defense is a case in point. The UK defense industry is encouraged to apply for European military funding, while government spokesmen deny any dissimulation and continue to stand for NATO and against a stand-alone EU defensive bloc.

The deep state remains alive and kicking. The power of civil servants, unabashedly in favor of the EU and inimical to Conservative policy to break UK subservience, has yet to be broken.

Fortunately for Brexiteeers, a game changer exists in the person of Tory MP Michael Gove, who is proving a thorn in the side of Mr. Johnson. If Gove is planning to do a Kingslayer job on Boris, James Delingpole reports for Breitbart London, then I wish him all the very best.

Like young Disraelis political future, the cause of British sovereignty stays in flux. Will Brexit be beaten once more? Or does victory for independence lie ahead?

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Mr. MacLean writes the Brexit Diary for the New York Sun.