Quite a lot has happened since the United Kingdom officially left the European Union on January 31st 2020. Barely two months had passed before we were subjected – with the mere stroke of a pen – to mass house arrest, compulsory mask wearing, absurd distancing rules and a general shutdown of the economy before being threatened with the possibility of mandatory or coerced vaccinations. While, touchwood, the COVID panic seems to have subsided for now, today the West is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, the global economy is in tatters, inflation is rising, and food and energy security have become a top priority in the rich world. The infliction of impoverishment and destitution in order to fulfil globalist, technocratic agendas has met the response of widespread protests on the continent (and even more notably in Sri Lanka, which has ousted its President).
Moreover, all of this has taken place against the backdrop of an accelerating culture war. Real and imagined divisions or fault lines based on gender, race, sexual orientation and religion have been exploited and exaggerated; Western values are denigrated as “imperialist” and “supremacist”; today, the definition of a “woman” seems to be a major political talking point, and yet even only five years ago it would have been laughed off the agenda.
In light of these cataclysmic developments, it is not unusual to see one or two commentators on the right stating that the now distant memory of Brexit no longer has much importance. Frequent among these is journalist James Delingpole, who has tweeted words to this effect on more than one occasion. In terms of magnitude, it is true that any victory achieved by Brexit seems dwarfed by these later events, together with the growth of state power they have enabled. Nevertheless, I think such a view is short-sighted, and at least the spirit, if not the act of Brexit, remains crucial to resisting the onslaught of tyranny.
It’s important to realise that none of the events described has occurred in isolation. Rather, Brexit was the first battle in what is likely to prove a long war against the consolidation and centralisation of power and decision making authority into an ever dwindling handful of supranational institutions. Such global governance is operated at the behest of elites and technocrats whose radical visions for the social and economic order are scarcely within the interests of the populations they rule.
Duncan Whitmore 