I thought I might kindly offer you some cogent words of advice and encouragement from an Anglophile who lives amongst you. I write as a dear American relative who cares deeply about you, your future, the special relationship between our two countries, and your long-term prosperity and enduring health as a people.
Keep calm and carry on… The longstanding British attitude and character is surely being challenged and your adversaries in Brussels are trying to make you feel puny while they intend to be punitive against you.
Don’t let them!
Stand tall; be firm; stand your ground; and follow through in the historic democratic decision your country took in June of 2016. Do not turn back.
You are Great Britain, a united and independent kingdom and the cup is more than half full. Be confident and rightly optimistic—your future in freedom looks most bright.
Beef & Liberty… as the old rallying cry suggests.
Yes, Brexit means you are leaving the immature and less than adequate European Union. Face the cold stark facts; there will be no single market, no customs union, no free movement, and no allowance of jurisdiction by a foreign court. Full stop.
These are fine and good things—embrace and appreciate them, instead of trying to moan, bemoan, delay or remoan them. Get on with it!
And do not be cowed into thinking you owe the unelected Brussels statist elite and their expensive bloated bureaucrats more than 60 billion pounds. Humbug and “go whistle,” to borrow a phrase. That is a nonsense figure, contrived and totally made up. Do not pay a red cent. You don’t have to, so why would you? Blackmail is wrong and unjust.
Instead, put your cards on the table and say here is what we fairly offer, good relations, and if you don’t like it we will stop wasting time and simply return to WTO rules … and get on with life. After all we invented global markets and can find our way ahead as ‘Global Britain.’ Europe can trade with you, and indeed it will. Increasingly, so will the rest of the world. By the way, the EU is actually a rapidly declining percentage of the global economy, anyway.
Immediately go out, like the missionaries that you are, and get new trade deals and partnerships. The US is most willing, so are India, likely China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a raft of others, the world over. And do play the Commonwealth card. You can be proud that Britain gave the world much, including civility and an appreciation for industry, trade and the market.
Reclaim your past by making it your very future.
And in that process remember leadership counts. You will not get where you need to go in your present state of disMay. Don’t look back. Look ahead! The last election is history and you need to prepare for the coming one.
At your next Conservative Party conference make a bold move for new and fresh, can I even suggest ‘cool’ leadership. As an expert on the subject, I have to say you desperately need it for numerous, if not obvious reasons.
This government is weak and poorly governed. Its presently disabled leader should honestly be replaced sooner, not later. The opposition of the pacifist, Comrade Corbyn, needs to be confronted now for what it is, namely, a Trokskyite Marxist proletariat that would transform Britain into a northern version of Venezuela and fail to deliver the future you both want and deserve.
You need a real, authentic leader: one who can campaign and win; one who is charismatic and articulate; and, one who knows policy inside out. You should avoid at all cost the typical party bickering, backstabbing, and infighting and choose based on promise, strength and electability. That means no buffoon, no traitors, and no Remainers need apply. You need a lion.
Who is that next, new truly bespoke Conservative leader?
In my humble and unbiased, friendly view, your best choice is a character straight from central casting, the very epitome of P.G. Wodehouse, and the ‘Englishman’ in Gilbert & Sullivan. He may seem a virtuous Victorian throwback but in fact, he is the backbone of everything essentially — British. His background, experience, youth, humour and momentum—makes him the Kennedy of this generation.
He is a principled Conservative MP, a debater without equal, and a historian who knows from whence you came and where you need to go. He can get you there—to that better post-Brexit place. No one in Parliament knows more about the institution, the law, the economy and finance or its architecture than this person. If I could, I would vote for him in an instant (he is even 1/8th American).
This is Jacob Rees-Mogg—your best choice to lead the party, win the government, serve the nation, fulfil the promise of Brexit, and rule judiciously, as a true patriot, for a decade or more to come. He is tradition, change, clarity and Britain all rolled into a single person. He is also likeable, friendly, intelligent, charming, moral and humane.
I should conclude this short summer sagely note, my friends, by restating that our friendly and mutual abiding interests, common worldview, congruence of sympathies, overlapping interests, and the undeniably unique heritage of the Anglo-American tradition of LIBERTY should be our true future together.
But first of all, you need to restate it as your destiny and your choice in a leader that embodies it. In my studied view, with a shared Whig history, the King James Bible, the Anglican Church, long historical memory — all of these things make up a valuable Anglo-Atlanticist patrimony. It was, is now, and ever shall be.
Britain and America belong together, not in Europe.
Taking up the cause of your own John Locke and casting aside the continental philosophy of the European Jacques Rousseau and the practices of Bonapartism — all too evident in the beastly and selfish EU, the Brits have with America cemented their place on the side of liberty. The Anglo-Saxon rule of law and democratic spirit has and will triumph over statism and the centralization of power even as it constantly faces new challenges, economically, as well as politically.
The future will much need such Anglo-American leadership; it appears more than ever before. Perhaps, herein lie, as Churchill rightly suggested, the true ‘sinews of lasting peace’.
America, your fully-grown adult child, the sole superpower and the beacon of hope, is by your side, on the beach, in the air, in every trench. We want you to succeed and our hand, yes both arms, are fully outstretched.
Years ago two acres of your Runnymede meadow were made over as a permanent gift from the British to the American people, and there, in a beautiful and tranquil setting which encourages contemplation and reflection, is set a large block of your beautiful gold-hued Portland stone on which are inscribed some of the most ringing and inspiring words from President Kennedy’s inaugural address.
Take heed today, my British allies, it says: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Our prayers and might, both and equally, are with you in your time of need. God bless you. Deus te benedicat.
Sincerely yours…
Theodore Roosevelt Malloch is a scholar, diplomat and strategist whose book, HIRED: An Insider’s View of the Trump Victory, was a much-appreciated account of the American election and its many implications.