As Britons go to the polls today to choose their delegation to the European Parliament, Brexit is in the balance. The vote for the legislature in Strasburg won’t decide the Brexit question. It is hard to reckon who will, given the failure of the Mother of Parliaments to do what the Britons so clearly asked for.

It is not hard, though, to reckon what is favored by The New York Sun. It favors “a hard, complete, unambiguous, permanent, irreversible exit from Europe and a stronger relationship with the pro-liberty democracies.” A sampler of Sun editorials on this head is below. Please click on the headlines for the full text.

Brexit Beckons

January 3, 2016

The Status Quo Party in Britain is growing worried that Britons could well decide to exit the European Union, we judge by the London Financial Times’ first editorial column of the year. It offers what it calls “the hard-headed case for the UK to stay in the EU.” That’s not a new demarche for the FT. It has been rattling on about this for years. But we detect a note of nervousness in its latest leader.

Jefferson’s Brexit

February 21, 2016

Now that Britain has scheduled for June its vote on whether to exit the European Union, we find ourselves thinking of what Thomas Jefferson would do. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Even while he wrote for revolution, he rued the separation from England. It’s a sentiment that echoes across the centuries as Britons now decide whether to stand for their own freedom against European socialism.

‘An Illusion of Sovereignty’

February 23, 2016

What, we wonder, does Queen Elizabeth II make of the way her prime minister has begun arguing against British independence? The question struck us as we watched this week an interview Mr. Cameron gave to the BBC, where he offered an early glimpse of his case for staying in the European Union. The referendum is now set for June, and the prime minister is suggesting that independence would offer only “an illusion of sovereignty.”

Breakfast and Brexit

February 27, 2016

Just how delightful is the story of the Brexit? For a newspaper editor, the referendum on whether the British exit from the European Union is just a gift that keeps on giving. The latest bauble is news that the whole fate of Europe may turn on a teakettle. This is because the regulators in Brussels have been hatching plans to, as the Financial Times puts it, “limit the use of high-powered kettles and toasters.”

Elizabeth’s Finest Hour

March 11, 2016

What an uproar in England, where Elizabeth II is bringing charges against The Sun, famed London tabloid, for breaking the news that she backs Britain leaving the European Union. The Sun broke the story this week, reporting what it called “an extraordinary alleged bust-up” that erupted in 2011 when Her Majesty had lunch with Euro-friendly Nicholas Clegg, then her deputy prime minister. Her dressing down of the hapless Mr. Clegg left other guests stunned. Now the Queen has turned on The Sun itself.

The Brexit Stakes

June 6, 2016

. . . Aaaaaand they’re into the stretch, with “Leave,” the high-spirited come-from-behind filly, now in the lead by a nose. That’s right, folks, a poll just in from YouGov finds that 45% now favor Britain opting for independence from the European Union, while only 41% want to stay. A separate, Obsever/Opinium poll, puts the “Leave” at 43% and “Remain” at 40%. There are still a lot of undecided, but at this point, all eyes are on “Leave.”

Could Trump Greet Brexit?

June 14, 2016

While Scotland gets set for a visit from Donald Trump the day after the vote on Brexit (he’s coming to open his refurbished golf resort, the Guardian reports), the British press is having a ball with the referendum on whether to exit the European Union. The latest is the endorsement of the Brexit by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun. It reckons that the campaign to “Remain” in the EU has been not only “deceitful” but also “nasty, cynical, personally abusive and beneath the dignity of Britain.” We’d add pompous, inaccurate, a-historical, and indifferent to the fact the EU has grown hostile to America.

Bravo, Britain

June 24, 2016

The vote to exit the European Union — to declare British independence — was unambiguous. Those who wanted to remain in Europe, pleading for permissions from un-elected commissars, lost by more than a million votes. In the privacy of the voting booth, Britons placed their bet on the “sunlit meadows” of freedom evoked by Brexit’s most eloquent champion, Boris Johnson (who came to his views in respect of the EU the same way the editor of the Sun did, by covering it for a newspaper).

The Brexit Backlash

June 27, 2016

The big danger in respect of Brexit is the backlash the left is trying to foment against Britain’s unambiguous decision for independence from the European Union. It is in the very nature of the European project to disdain democratic decisions. That is precisely one of the factors that animated the voters in the United Kingdom in the first place. If their decision is to prevail, though, it looks like it will be every man and woman to the metaphorical barricades — and constant vigilance.

Back to the Future

July 12, 2016

It’s hard to remember from a modern politician a more poignant l’envoi than David Cameron’s final cry as prime minister, “I was the future once.” It was a reference, we were reminded by the Mirror, to his jibe at the expense of Tony Blair when the two clashed for the first time at prime minister’s questions and Mr. Cameron delighted the Tories by saying of Mr. Blair: “He was the future once.” How, not to put too fine a point on it, time flies.

‘Something About Brexit’

April 18, 2017

In the moments after Hillary Clinton conceded the presidency to Donald Trump, a new book tells us, the defeated Democrat suddenly lashed out at FBI director James Comey and the Russians. “Her voice rose. Her eyes grew wider. Her hands began moving again. ‘These guys came in,’ she huffed. ‘We were doing better until this happened.’ Bill Clinton nodded in agreement and muttered something about Brexit.”

A Portent for Trump?

June 8, 2017

The New York Sun favors a hard, complete, unambiguous, permanent, irreversible exit from Europe and a stronger relationship with the pro-liberty democracies.

Trump’s Brexit Blast

July 12, 2018

It is hard to think of a demarche quite like the blast President Trump just delivered in respect of Brexit. It came in the form of an interview with the London daily Sun, in which Mr. Trump lit into Prime Minister Theresa May for making a bollix of Britain’s exit from the European Union. He’d told her how to do it, he claimed, and she failed to take his advice. This hit the internet as Mr. Trump was finishing his dinner with Mrs. May, and scores of others, at Blenheim Palace.

As Goes Brexit, So Goes Trump

December 5, 2018

As goes Brexit, so goes Trump. That’s our instinct after the meltdown in Britain, where the government of Prime Minister Theresa May has just been found in contempt of the Mother of Parliaments. It is a breathtaking rebuke, on the eve of the vote in which the same Parliament will decide whether to bow to the declaration of the people, in referendum, that they want independence from Europe.

Theresa May’s Declaration of Independence (With Apologies to Thos. Jefferson etc.)

December 11, 2018

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of the Remainers requires that they should negotiate and dicker with their oppressors.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, endowed by Belgian bureaucrats with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are ever closer union with dirigiste regimes having a completely different, if any, concept of liberty. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among persons, deriving their just powers from the French and Luxembourgers.

‘No Deal’ Would Be the Best Brexit

January 14, 2019

As the Mother of Parliaments prepares for what the newspapers are calling a critical vote on Prime Minister May’s plan to leave the European Union, The New York Sun endorses Britain leaving Europe without a deal. At some bookmakers the odds for such an outcome are lengthening. All the more reason to state our view not only that a “hard Brexit” would be acceptable but that it’s the best option.

Brexit: ‘No Deal’ Is Ideal

January 16, 2019

The defeat in Parliament of Prime Minister May’s compromise with Europe opens the way to true independence for Britain. It presents the chance for a redemption of the referendum of June 2016, when Britons were asked “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” and 51.89% answered “Leave the European Union.”

It is too soon to declare mission accomplished. The future can still be lost, but Britain just took a giant step in the right direction. It makes clear that Britain’s future lies with a “no deal” Brexit. It means that Britons are unwilling to leave themselves partially under the control of the Mandarins in Brussels. They want to manage their own sovereign system. Good for Britain.

Does Sterling Back Brexit?

January 31, 2019

What is the market telling us about the prospects of a “no-deal” Brexit? On Tuesday, a parliamentary proposal to “delay Brexit rather than leave without a deal” was, as the Bloomberg wire put it, “comfortably beaten.” That and other actions in Parliament, Bloomberg reckons, mean that the “chances of a ‘no-deal’ exit have increased.” Yet, lo and behold, sterling has “held onto most of its gains.”

Brexit: A Supreme Test of the British

March 13, 2019

As the Mother of Parliaments wrestles with whether to bow to the voters of Great Britain or the mandarins in Brussels, here’s what we will be thinking. We will be thinking how lucky Americans are that the Revolutionaries who founded our country struck for independence when they did. They seized independence when they had the chance, and it’s made all the difference since.

Brexit: What Would Thatcher Do?

March 20, 2019

What would Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher do in respect of Brexit? That’s the question with which we’re wrestling as the second woman premier to lead Britain, Theresa May, flounders toward the March 29 date by which, absent a deal or an agreed-upon delay, Britain will finally regain its independence. How would the Iron Lady handle what the nervous Nellies are calling a colossal constitutional crisis?

The Devil and Theresa May

March 27, 2019

Of Prime Minister May’s offer to quit as prime minister if the Commons approves her Brexit deal . . . well, it hasn’t happened yet (nor any other of eight proposals). Yet we haven’t heard anything so tempting since Stephen Vincent Benet’s story of the Devil and Daniel Webster. Mrs. May is no further down on her luck than Farmer Jabez Stone was when he pricked his finger and struck his deal with the Devil.

Brexit and the Irish Question

April 1, 2019

Could Brexit result in the reunification of Ireland? Could it trump — forgive us — all the wars and feuding over the division of the emerald isle between the centrally Catholic Irish Republic in the south and the predominantly Protestant part of the United Kingdom that is known as Northern Ireland? That it might is a suggestion being made in a piece in Sunday Review of the New York Times .

Nice to see the Times come in on this story. That’s because the first to raise this possibility was our columnist on 20th century history, Paul Atkinson, writing on March 11 in the Sun under the headline: “Could Brexit Manage to Unite Ireland?”

Prime Minister Nigel Farage?

May 12, 2019

Could Britain end up with Prime Minister Nigel Farage? On the one hand, we wouldn’t put any more money on it than, say, the New York Times was prepared, on election eve in 2016, to put on Donald Trump. On the other hand, feature what’s happening as Britons prepare to go to the polls to select their delegation to the next European “Parliament.”

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Image: Drawing by Elliott Banfield, courtesy of the artist.