That Brexit Prize

The IEA has announced the six finalists in the Brexit Prize and, sad to say, neither of the two for whom I was rooting is on it. The two were, naturally, the Boss and Jim Bennett, the godfather of Anglospherism, which, presumably, does not figure in the chosen short list, Rory Broomfield being more interested in the Commonwealth though his partner in crime, Iain Murray, is, so far as I know, an Anglospherist.

We need not despair: the Boss has blogged on the subject and here is his (and EUReferendum's) full submission. I have read it: it is now your turn. Enjoy yourselves.

As soon as I know where I can find Jim Bennett's submission, I shall post a link to that, too.

Iceland and the Anglosphere

My friend Hjörtur J. Guðmundsson (well, I think he is my friend but as he came to London and discussed the Anglosphere without bothering to let me know I may have to re-think that) has sent me a link to a piece he wrote on ConHome, which is just as well because I rarely read it, not being that interested in the Conservative Party's internal squabbles.

This piece, however, is of great interest and importance as the  subject under discussion is whether Iceland can be or ought to be part of the Anglosphere. My own view is that countries of Europe that sent little ships out into the wide blue yonder without knowing where that was are a separate breed from those who concentrated on their immediate land borders and that is one reason they cannot really survive for very long in one union. There are three exceptions to this: one is France, which did both but, ultimately, decided that those land borders were more important, perhaps because of such events as the Seven Years War; the second one is Spain that did send ships out but somehow managed to lose intellectual momentum; and Hungary, which did not send ships out but sent people absolutely everywhere from Central Asia to the New World. Mind you, (Hungary also had the Golden Bull in 1224, which lays down almost exactly the same agreements as did the Magna Carta nine years previously and Budapest had the first underground line on the Continent, following London's example.)

Iceland is obviously on the "little ships" side of the divide. This is what Hjörtur J. Guðmundsson has to say:

In a British area of influence

So where does Iceland stand regarding all this? Well, first of all although English is not the native tongue in Iceland most Icelanders nevertheless speak the language, and many have mastered it very well. Iceland was also never a part of the British Empire, but rather the Danish Kingdom until gaining independence in 1944 (although in the early 19th century it was floated that the country be transferred to lie under British rule). Nevertheless, Iceland was for centuries in a British area of influence.

British influence in Iceland culminated during the First World War, as the war resulted in looser political and economic ties with Denmark. That continued in the inter-war period with a growing British interest in Iceland which eventually led to the occupation by British military forces in May 1940 after the outbreak of the Second World War. A year later, the United States agreed to replace the British and defend Iceland, since the United Kingdom needed its forces elsewhere in the war effort.

Politically more to the right

The United States continued to have troops stationed in Iceland during the Cold War until 2006, when they were finally evacuated entirely from the country. As a result of all this Iceland has become both very Americanized and Anglicized. That also goes for Icelandic politics which are generally more in line with those of the Anglosphere than on continental Europe, including the other Nordic countries. The emphasis is generally more to the right and more economic liberal.

The conservative Independence Party, the dominant party in Icelandic politics for decades, is for example more in line with its sister party the British Conservatives, in its policies than the Danish Conservative Party or the German Christian Democratic Union. The dominating political parties in the other Nordic countries have, however, traditionally been social democratic parties. The Left in Icelandic politics has also tended to be closer to the centre when it comes to its policies.

Individualist national character

Furthermore, the national character of Icelanders has tended to be very individualist, and therefore much in line with the Anglo-Saxon tradition – which in turn has probably contributed to the historically strong position of the Independence Party. This individualism may very well derive at least partly from the fact that Icelanders are islanders, which they of course have in common with the British. There is something which has been referred to as the island mentality.

Finally, and solely as an interesting historical point, the roots of Icelanders happen to be traceable largely to the British Isles – mainly to Celts in Scotland and Ireland. According to an ongoing research based on Iceland’s present population by the company deCODE genetics and the University of Oxford, 20 per cent of male settlers of Iceland more than 1000 years ago had ancestral lines which could be traced to the British Isles and 63 percent of the female settlers. The rest was of Nordic origin.

His conclusion is that while Iceland probably cannot be a full member of the Anglosphere, "there is a good basis for closer co-operation between Iceland and the Anglosphere countries in the future – for example regarding trade, security and defence". Sounds very reasonable to me. Now all we need is for the Conservative Party and its denizens to recognize the importance of the Anglosphere and to understand that it is the obvious way forward.

A long article on conservatism in the Anglosphere

This is well worth reading though it is long. John O'Sullivan who has made his appearance on this blog before here, here and here, has written a sort of end of term analysis of conservatism in the Anglosphere on NRO. Looking at the situation in the US, Australia, Canada and Britain (though not New Zealand, which would have been interesting) he comes to the unsurprising conclusion that conservatism is in worst shape of all in this country.

Mihir Bose on India, aid and the need for links

An excellent article by Mihir Bose about the modern India, British aid (which is unnecessary) and the need for sensible links between the two countries.

Britain would be much better advised to forget the nonsense that aid helps to build ties. What is needed is to develop links with the new India based on a shared history, which the Indians are now ready to acknowledge.

It is, in fact, time to forget that outdated concept, the Commonwealth, whose members are not waiting for Britain to take its position at the head, and start thinking in terms of the new idea, the Anglosphere.

Up to a point, Lord Copper

It cheers one's heart to read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Britain needing to return to its rightful place in the world, that is the Anglosphere, though in the first place, the authors talk of Britain's future being with America not Europe. As a short-hand it will do, particularly as the article itself talks of Canada and Australia and the Anglospheric countries in general. I suspect the hand of a sub-editor in the choice of the title.

Perhaps, I had better start with declaring my interests: not only am I a confirmed Anglospherist but the two authors, Iain Murray and James C. Bennett are good friends of mine with whom I have conducted many discussions in cyberspace and face to face. In fact, when I raised one or two objections to the article, I got helpful responses from the authors, which told me something that did not surprise me: the original draft was a little less complimentary to our Prime Minister.

I consider the authors' account of what Britain lost in joining the EEC and of the problems the eurozone and with it the EU is facing completely accurate. Naturally enough, I agree with their main thesis: this country should not belong to the sclerotic, bureaucratic, protectionist would-be European state that is not and cannot be expected to be based the Anglospheric political, constitutional and judicial ideas.

There are a few problems, though. In the first place, there are mistakes in this:

The European Economic Community (EEC) for which the British signed up in a 1975 referendum—a community of free trade and cooperation, not supranational bureaucracy—is long gone. Worse, even today's less-palatable EU will soon no longer be on offer.

There is the basic mistake of assuming that Britain signed up to the EEC in a referendum. As we all know, the 1975 referendum was called after two years of membership and some cosmetic "renegotiation", the gist of which nobody can recall. The question was not about whether anybody wanted to go into the EEC but whether they wanted to stay in.

Nor is it true to say that the EEC was ever a community of free trade and cooperation. At best it was a customs union with the Preamble to the Treaty of Rome speaking frankly of an ever-closer union of the peoples of Europe. The fact that so many voters preferred not to find out what they were voting about does not make the myth true.

More importantly, the article perpetuates the myth of David Cameron standing up for Britain, splitting the EU, creating a new role for Britain and so on, though there is a clear indication that he mucked up the negotiations. Readers of this blog cannot remain unaware of reiterated comments about what really happened at those negotiations. In case anyone has forgotten, here is a reminder. In brief: there was no treaty, no veto and no assurance that Britain may have gained anything. The chance to repatriate powers was given away as that cannot happen without a full IGC and a new treaty.

Still, one cannot argue with an article that ends with these words:

Up to now, however, the U.S. has pursued a policy of propping up the euro while discouraging British independence from Brussels. This is incredibly short-sighted. Using the vehicles of the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund to try to fill the gaping hole in Europe's finances will get everybody nowhere. Instead, British, American and Canadian policy makers (along with their Nafta partners in Mexico) should be taking the long view and preparing for a future in which the unsustainable euro zone inevitably collapses. Welcoming Britain back into the North Atlantic economic community would be a win-win for all involved.

It is unlikely to happen for a while since Britain is not free to join anything while she remains in the EU and that has not changed, despite the post European Council grandstanding.

Thanksgiving

To start with, I looked up previous postings on the subject and found this one from 2006. It links back to Michelle Malkin's list of what Americans (and, as I said, we) can be thankful for and has a go at whiny journalists. Oh go on, you know you want to read it. Here is Michelle's posting for this year's Thanksgiving, a sadder and more personal one. A couple of nice Thanksgiving postings on Chicagoboyz, one of my intermittent blogging homes (here and here).

The Wall Street Journal, as ever, had provided the right articles. Thomas Fleming writes about American servicemen and women celebrating Thanksgiving in many parts of the world, specifically in Britain in 1942.

And so we come to the annual articles that never fade: A Desolate Wilderness by Nathaniel Morton, that records the Pilgrims' arrival (though that is not what the first Thanksgiving celebrated) and the one about America now, And the Fair Land.

'For all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators.'

Long may it continue and reflect back on the rest of the Anglosphere. Happy Thanksgiving.

Americans in London

Yesterday was, just in case any reader missed it, Independence Day. Naturally, one is ambivalent about it. After all, the rebellious colonies declared their independence and, perhaps, one should not feel too happy about it. The truth is that it was the third great English Revolution and, as such, should be celebrated by all.

Walter Russell Mead's article gives an excellent if, necessarily inadequate summary of traces of American history that one can find in London. Enjoy.

Politicians are having a bad time everywhere

Glenn Reynolds writes on Instapundit that the Tea-Party Movement is considerably more popular in the United States than either the Republicans or the Democrats. He links to a piece on MSNBC First Post. Well, well, well. I wonder why that is.

Incidentally, I have just written a slightly critical note to Professor Reynolds about this posting on his blog:

BBC ASKS: “Should homosexuals face execution?” Not until that “creeping Sharia” creeps a good deal farther . . . .

Anyone who followed up the link would have worked out eventually that this was a discussion by the BBC Africa Service about a proposed piece of legislation in Uganda, a legitimate subject for that Service to discuss, whatever hyperventilating MPs think. The implication of both JammieWearing Fool's and Instapundit's posting is that this is to do with British legislation. I have left a note on JammieWearing Fool's blog as well. I am just a little tired of all this Brit-bashing, which tends to be as silly and ignorant as the America-bashing on this side of the Pond.

Liberal and illiberal revolutions

John O'Sullivan, quondam speech writer to Margaret Thatcher, editor of National Review and, subsequently, of The National Interest, at present Executive Editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and a man I seem to quote fairly frequently, had a recent article on NR digital [to which one needs a subscription so I am not linking], entitled "Revolutionay Types"

This is not an analysis of personalities like Mikhail Bakunin or Pyotr Tkachev, not even of the usual suspects, Lenin, Mao, Hitler and Che but of the types of revolutions the modern world has seen. There are, Mr O'Sullivan points out, quoting among others, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga who, back in 1991 spoke about two kinds of revolution: liberal and illiberal with the East European "velvet" ones being definitely in the first category. (Since then Signor Cossiga has made some rather more controversial statements.)

The article's starting point is the recent and still fitfully continuing Iranian uprising, which will have to be judged fully in the future but which, at present, shows signs of being at the very least the starting point of a liberal revolution unlike that of the 1979 one, which was from the very beginning an illiberal one.

If violence is the test in Iran, it points clearly to two conclusions: The 1979 Iranian Revolution was an anti-liberal revolution and the 2009 demonstrations may be at least the start of a liberal one. The first point scarcely needs arguing — Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution used violence to topple the shah, violence to entrench its rule, violence against original supporters whom it exiled, and violence against the Iranian people at regular intervals. Its current use of violence against people demonstrating peacefully in opposition to the stealing of an election merely underlines its anti-liberal nature. What is less clear is whether the 2009 revolution is liberal in
character.

Khomeini's 1979 revolution established what an earlier age would have described as "a mixed regime." It combined a limited democracy with a supervisory system of religious guardians. These ensured that any political debate or reform would take place within the regime's rules of Islamist orthodoxy. Thus, candidates were allowed to compete in this year's presidential
election only on condition that they were supporters of the Islamic revolution. If there was a difference between them before the election — and there was — it was over economic topics, on which the main challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, represented a pragmatic approach and Ahmadinejad a more populist one.

That was before the election, however. Since then the street demonstrators have shouted slogans that clearly indicated a rejection of the current Islamist rule in favor of some sort of moderate liberal democracy (probably one with Islamic tinges, on the model of the AKP government in Turkey). The supreme leader's brutal rejection of these complaints has liberalized the crowds still further. It looks as if they now want the end of the anti-liberal Islamist regime. And Mousavi, a moderate revolutionary in the anti-liberal camp, finds himself marching at the head of a liberal revolution.

Let us, however, look at the wider issues. The three obviously liberal revolutions were the 1688 Glorious Revolution in Britain, the 1776 one in America and the 1989-1990 ones in Eastern Europe. The two main illiberal revolutions were the French Revolution of 1789 and the Bolshevik coup of 1917 (the actual Revolution of 1917 being liberal in intent but becoming anarchy immediately).

There is a problem with the French Revolution in that its early leaders thought that they were actually enacting liberal British and American ideas but these did not have the same outcome in France for a number of reasons. Subsequent developments turned those early days of liberalism into a totalitarian nightmare.

Mr O'Sullivan defines the basic difference thus:

Whereas the Anglo-Americans saw liberty as a system of government that allowed people to pursue different ways of life, their Continental imitators saw it as a particular way of life that, if necessary, might have to be imposed on those mistakenly enslaved to tradition, religion, inequality, or whatever. Eradicating tradition, religion, inequality, or anything else to which people are strongly attached, however, requires abolishing their freedom, usually bloodily. Hence the revolution of 1789 became more plainly anti-liberal and more violent as it
ground relentlessly on.

There are other issues such as the different views of violence: an unfortunate necessity to be used very sparingly or a concept to be worshipped for its own sake. However, one cannot deny the crucial difference between the two understandings of liberty.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to insist that those two concepts are as separate as one would like them to be, no matter what British eurosceptics might repeat ad nauseam. Looking at the growing tea-party movement in the United States and the ever stronger grass-roots opposition to Obamacare (a proposed health care system that is going to be considerably more socialist and oppressive than the British one) I would say that these ideas are alive and well on the other side of the Pond.

(According to Jammiewearingfool, who quotes various sources, President Obama has been reduced to using the Violet Elizabeth Bott argument. "I'll thcream and thcream until I am thick." Let us hope Congressmen are made of sterner stuff than Mr and Mrs Bott or the Outlaws who generally let Violet Elizabeth get away with everything.)

In Britain, on the other hand, we have a serious problem with almost all political parties, the entire MSM and a good deal of the rather frivolous blogosphere as well as public opinion.

We are frequently told in a somewhat lachrymose fashion that Britain fought two wars (as if Britain's fighting was limited to just two wars) to preserve freedom and democracy. Well, that's as may be.

We have also been told that the second of those two wars (which were the only ones Britain fought in this century until she got to Iraq and Afghanistan and pigs might fly) was also fought to create "a new order", "a new Britain". That certainly happened. The consensus of the time, wrong as a consensus always is, that there was no way back to the old values and the new kind of war that included the whole population deserved a new kind of peace.

Well, we got that new kind of peace and are still living with it. Unfortunately, it really did mean what it said: a discarding of all the old values, the notion of "liberty as a system of government that allowed people to pursue different ways of life". Liberty is now seen as a particular system, a set of rights and privilieges granted by the government to the people.

Just how long are we going to go along with it?

Is there an election coming up in the next year or so?

I used to have a lot of time for Sarah Brown, the PM's wife. Of course, she is not nearly as entertaining as Cherie Blair but she has always seemed very pleasant and intelligent, even elegant in a quiet way, obviously a fond mother and a sensible spouse (though even she could not make a human being out of her husband).

I am beginning to change my mind. There seems to be rather a lot of Sarah Brown around. Clearly, the Labour strategists have realized that there are many people who feel as I do and find the lady quite attractive. What they have not realized, being the usual kind of political dim-wits, is that if they keep pushing her into the limelight that good will is going to disappear. Mine, for one, is already fading.

Apparently she visited Glastonbury with the model Naomi Campbell. I missed this momentous event as I am profoundly uninterested in Glastonbury but now that I know I cannot help wondering at the preposterousness of neat, quietly pleasant Sarah Brown at that muddy, rowdy, noisy event.

Now we are told that she will march in the Gay Pride parade this Saturday because both she and her husband (who cannot attend for security reasons) want to show their support for the gay community in this country.

Excuse me, but is the gay community in any way oppressed in Britain? Has anything happened since the last Gay Pride parade to make the Browns feel that their support is needed? Or did they not know that there has been an annual Gay Pride parade for good many years now? (I must say, if I were the Gay Pride parade organizer I would run shrieking away from the Browns and their support, not wishing to be contaminated.)

Tomorrow Trafalgar Square is being taken over for Canada Day. I am not a great fan of Trafalgar Square being taken over by any taxpayer-sponsored demonstration but I shall go along to this one. Canada and the Anglosphere need supporting and it would be nice if the Prime Minister and his lady thought so, too.

Incidentally, the Gay Pride parade is on July 4. Is there not another event to be celebrated on that day, one that has to do with our greatest ally and with the Anglosphere in general? I trust Mr and Mrs Brown will lend their support to the community that has been under attack for some years in this country - Americans who live and work here.

Out there - politics in Britain and India

It is possible that today we shall see a constitutional upheaval with the House of Commons reasserting its power over the Speaker, who is or ought to be an officer of the House not the Government’s errand boy, which is what Speaker Martin has been.

There is talk of a vote of no confidence on Douglas Carswell’s Motion and of the Speaker being removed if he does not remove himself during his statement, which is hard to believe of a man like Speaker Martin, who has managed to show himself to be dishonest, a bully and a complete ignoramus about British constitutional structures (such as they still are).

Even Jackie Ashley of the Guardian thinks that “Gorbals Mick” must go, though her using that nickname makes it sound like the toffs are ganging up on the poor working class bloke. Nor does she seem to be able to grasp what it is that is wrong with the man and his behaviour now and throughout his Speakership.

Iain Martin of the Telegraph seems to think that getting rid of Speaker Martin is a sign of badly needed parliamentary reform. Well, no it isn’t. If it happens it will be a return to the real parliamentary tradition of having a Speaker that is not the Government’s errand boy. Can we bring Betty Boothroyd back from the Lords?

A real reform would mean the Commons actually taking legislative powers back from the EU and the various quangos to whom they have given those powers away. Still, doing something that has not happened since 1695 is a step in the right direction.

Now if only we could start thinking about separating the legislative and the executive.

But that’s enough British politics. Out there in the big world there is one very good piece of news. Manmohan Singh, India’s Anglospheric, forward looking Prime Minister has become the first full-term premier to be re-elected.

The Congress party and its coalition partners soared ahead with 260 seats in the country's 543-seat Parliament, just shy of a majority. It was Congress's biggest win in 20 years.

The BJP coalition, led by 81-year-old L.K. Advani, who is nicknamed Iron Man for his tough stand against terrorism, is set to take 160 seats.

The BJP is also known for being Hindu extremist and not averse to the odd spot of terrorism itself in its own cause. And, as an Anglospherist ally said to me, you cannot just write off 15 per cent of the population who happen to be Muslim. No more can you write off other parts of the population who may be Hindu or Christian or nothing much and would like to have a better life and see India take its rightful place in the world.

Does India now have a better government than either Britain or the United States?