Britain to EU: Good riddance

Maybe it was those college courses on the history of Europe that soured me on the idea of a united continent. How could a conglomeration of nation states noted for invading each other, pillaging and warring against each other form a union? How could a continent with different languages, cultures, and money become a united states of Europe modeled after the USA?

Unity is not union. As the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed: “European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.”

The euro, which I also mocked at the time it was introduced on Jan. 1, 1999, replaced the French franc (the Swiss wisely kept their franc), the German mark, the Dutch guilder and most other circulating currencies. Thatcher again: “The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically, and indeed socially …” How prescient she was.

A majority of British voters literally want their country back. That sentiment was repeated in interviews with average blokes on the BBC and SkyNews. They are tired of being dictated to by an unelected and unaccountable elite in Brussels. They are tired of the wave of immigrants who do not assimilate and seem uninterested in becoming fully British. And they are tired of being called names for wishing to preserve what was handed down to them by previous generations who fought and died so their descendants might continue to enjoy the British way of life.

Even Queen Elizabeth II, who normally remains outwardly neutral on most political issues, appeared to step in on this one. According to Breitbart’s London reporter, Liam Deacon, there are reports that the Queen “thinks European courts that protect Islamist hate preachers ‘denigrate’ Britain and has demanded that her dinner guests ‘Give me three good reasons’ to remain inside the European Union.”

Scottish separatists vow to hold another vote because their leader, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, wants to remain in the EU. But the die has been cast. I suspect the EU will eventually fall apart. The nations that currently comprise it could return to their previous borders and currencies, but hopefully not their previous feuds. A status quo ante would be good news for Vladimir Putin, who has viewed a united Europe as an impediment to his plan to restore “greater Russia.”

The main lesson for Britain and the U.S. is that the people, properly informed and aroused, don’t have to put up with elitist big government whose leaders think they can run people’s lives better than the people.

We can take back our countries and make them what the founders intended them to be. Britain is on the way to doing so, though the left will not give up easily, if at all.

Whether or not the United States still has the resolve to restore its founders’ vision … remains to be seen.

© 2016 Tribune Content Agency LLC.

Listen to Cal Thomas’ commentary on the June 28 edition of The World and Everything in It.