OPINION:
On Friday, the U.K. officially left the EU and the U.S. Senate voted against calling witnesses, all but ensuring President Trump’s acquittal. For over three years, our two great nations have struggled to uphold “rule by the people,” so that was a big day.
Had Democrats and Remainers succeeded in overturning the results of a U.S. presidential election and a U.K. national referendum — the democratic legitimacy of both countries would be over.
The U.K.’s Brexit celebrations were low-key. The government didn’t even bother to get Big-Ben ready to ring the 11th-hour in. Instead, a recording of its chimes was played on loudspeakers.
Partly this was Leavers not wanting to appear to be gloating, but it was also because Prime Minister Boris Johnson knew his government couldn’t own this moment.
The prime minister made a conciliatory speech on social media, had new commemorative 50 pence coins struck after the previous ones made for Oct. 31 had to be melted down, and shone a few lasers on Downing Street, but that was all.
Everyone knows that it was really Nigel Farage who made Brexit happen, and deep-down so do the Conservatives, although they haven’t yet acknowledged his efforts.
On the day that Mr. Farage lost his job in Brussels, he presided over a people’s public celebration, with the newly tamed houses of Parliament as the backdrop.
Not for nothing did he call his quixotic movement, “The Brexit Party,” and he invited everyone to join his big bash, with singing, dancing and a lot of Union Jack flag waving across Parliament Square.
The BBC’s coverage of the event was as merry as an autopsy. But this is just not a good time for the state broadcaster with its, ‘pay the BBC fee even if you don’t watch our channels or be fined and maybe jailed unless you are Scottish,’ funding policy under increasing scrutiny.
And Friday wasn’t a good day for the Democratic party either. Nancy Pelosi shrieked that the Senate trial, “rejected our nation’s judicial norms, precedents and institutions to uphold the constitution and the rule of law.” And she should know because that is exactly how her party ran the House side of the impeachment proceedings.
Not at all embarrassed to hear those flawed hearings forensically exposed by the president’s defense team, she instead demanded his lawyers be disbarred for having the temerity to criticize them. The Democrats have turned deflection into an art form.
As for the U.K., its EU exit terms permit a year of vassalage, where Britain will be subject to EU rules and taxes, but without representation. And a dispute has already risen with France over U.K. plans to sell off British Steel to the Chinese company, Jingye.
British Steel owns the French steel company, Hyange, which Mr. Macron considers to be a strategic national asset and doesn’t want it falling into Chinese hands — a concern that doesn’t bother the Conservative party as it is busy courting Chinese investment.
This policy was set during Mr. Cameron’s tenure. In 2015, his finance minister, George Osborne, wrote a gushing piece in the Guardian newspaper, “There are those who say we should fear China’s rise … but we reject such thinking … we want to make the UK China’s best partner in the west.”
As a result, U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, had to fly to London last week to discuss the U.K. government’s choice of Huawei as a supplier for its 5G system. He warned, “The Chinese Communist Party presents the central threat of our times.”
The tragedy for British Steel is that it got into trouble because the Brexit delay caused uncertainly over future pricing, so overseas orders dried up, plus China was allowed to dump huge amounts of low-cost steel on the U.K. market.
Meanwhile British Steel was hit with higher U.K. business taxes and the unbelievably high EU carbon tax.
The British government had to lend it £120m just to pay the EU’s tax on its 2018 emissions, after the EU stopped granting free carbon permits to U.K. companies until a Brexit deal is ratified.
However, the government would not lend British Steel the further £30m it needed to cover running costs, as that would violate EU laws on state aid. In the age of climate change panic, paying carbon tax is more important than keeping a strategically vital company solvent.
So, let’s see, China is allowed to dump steel — British Steel goes bust — a Chinese company is allowed to buy British Steel. Great policy.
The U.K. also asked China to fund its new 3.9 GW high-cost, low-carbon nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C, and others too, while China plans to increase coal-fired power by 148 GW.
It doesn’t have to make sense. Anthropogenic global warming keeps the lucrative carbon trading market going and growing, turning hot air into money.
• Andrew Davies is a U.K.-based video producer and scriptwriter.
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