Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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#Brexit wins

Yes, Brexit wins.

Britain Votes to Leave the European Union

Not long after the vote tally was completed, Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the campaign to remain in the bloc, appeared in front of 10 Downing Street on Friday morning to announce that he planned to step down by October, saying the country deserved a leader committed to carrying out the will of the people.

A victory for independence,

The vote for Brexit (52 percent of Britons cast ballots to leave the EU) is a vote for sovereignty and self-determination. Britain will no longer be subject to European legislation, with Britain’s Parliament retaking control. British judges will no longer be overruled by the European Court of Justice, and British businesses will be liberated from mountains of EU regulations, which have undermined economic liberty.

For the second time in 80 years that little Island has bought the world a space in which others could rediscover their own hardihood.

The Tories should now strive to make the U.K. a pro-growth model.

Roger Kimball writes from London.

Memeorandum has a huge thread.

I’m going to celebrate by watching the third season of Peaky Blinders. Note: if you start watching PB, you may not be able to tear yourself off. (I watched the first season with subtitles, until I got used to the accents.)

For now, here’s fireworks,

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#Brexit referendum day

Richard North of EU Referendum is live blogging

14:36: I am not sure I can get my head round the idea of legions of clerks, armed with erasers, secretly rubbing out “leave” votes and replacing them with votes for the other side. However, when it comes to the use of pens, it was instructive to note that we were offered that option at our polling station.

Telegraph live coverage, latest headline: EU Referendum: Polling stations forced to close by floods, as final polls show race ‘too close to call’

Roger Kimball: Will There Always Be an England?

So long as Britain remains tethered to the European Union, Brussels will be able to impose all the regulations it wants via other treaties. Ultimately the debate over Brexit is a debate over sovereignty, which is a fancy word for freedom. Today’s vote is historic because on it rests the future freedom of Great Britain. Will it be absorbed still further into the (more or less) soft bureaucratic totalitarianism of the European Union, gradually extinguishing its common law traditions, or will it reassert its prerogatives of self rule? My record as a political prognosticator has been ostentatiously poor yet I venture, with some trepidation, to say that my reading of the tea leaves suggests that the spirit of independence has not been entirely bred out of the British electorate. There are apparently no exit polls for the referendum, so we won’t know until very late tonight whether (to end with another song) Britain will still be able to sing “Rule, Britannia” and its famous refrain “Britons never, never, never will be slaves.” That’s not the fate that David Cameron, to say nothing of his Continental masters, have in mind, but today, perhaps for the last time in a generation, the British voters have a choice.

Bookmaker.eu (a gambling site) sent me their link, which is not displaying live. See this note from the Telegraph:

“Punters have been waiting until the day of the vote to part with their cash and REMAIN is all they’re interested in. As a direct result LEAVE has drifted out to 7/1 and that could move out even further as the day goes on.”

Hmmmm . . .

Twitter #Brexit

Memeorandum threads:

Seth Barrett Tillman / THE NEW REFORM CLUB:

Alexander Hamilton on Brexit  —  After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America.  The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less …
RELATED:
Drudge Report:
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Ecuador: Swedish prosecutors to question Assange

Julian Assange Wikileaks Ecuador embassy Patino sweden

Julian Assange is still in the embassy,

Ecuador’s foreign minister Ricardo Patino has said requests by Swedish prosecutors to question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be accepted, so long as Ecuador’s law is respected.
…
Patino said in an interview on Ecuador’s Radio Publica on January 15 that Swedish prosecutors could provide Ecuadorian authorities with questions for Assange. These conditions are to ensure “the sovereignty of the Ecuadorian state and the laws in the constitution are respected.”

Ecuador’s foreign minister Ricardo Patino stated, “If they don’t charge [Assange], he can leave.”

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Ecuador: Assange’s police guard removed

Julian Assange: British police end round-the-clock guard at Ecuador embassy

British police say they will no longer stand guard outside London’s Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took refuge in 2012.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said it had “withdrawn the physical presence of officers from outside the embassy” but would strengthen a “covert plan” to prevent his departure.

“The operation to arrest Julian Assange does however continue and should he leave the embassy the MPS will make every effort to arrest him,” it said.
. . .
Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr Assange about a rape claim, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations that expires in 2020.
. . .
The 44-year-old Australian also fears that if he leaves he could eventually face extradition to the United States and a trial over the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010.

Business Insider’s headline, later changed, referred to Assange’s embassy lodgings as a “>bolt-hole.

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Ecuador: Assange to leave London embassy

Allegations of violent sexual assault against Julian Assange are about to expire under Sweden’s statute of limitations, so he’s already packed his bags,
Julian Assange confirms he is to leave Ecuadorian embassy ‘soon’Speaking after two years’ confinement, the WikiLeaks founder was typically enigmatic, but ‘his bags are packed’

And would he address the reports that he was planning to surrender imminently to police? Assange pointed to Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks’ spokesperson, who was standing at the rear. “I understand [Hrafnsson] has said that he can confirm that I am leaving the embassy soon” – a broad smile – “but perhaps not for the reasons that the Murdoch press and Sky news are saying at the moment.”

Security cost $12million for his 3 year stay.

Apparently

Mr Assange, who denies the sex claims, fears that he will be extradited on to the US to face charges relating to the huge leaks of sensitive data.

However, according to The Telegraph,

Sweden’s extradition agreement with the United States was signed in October 1961 and updated in March 1983. It prohibits extradition on the basis of “a political offence” or “an offence connected with a political offence”.

But his supporters fear that he could be “snatched” by the CIA and spirited away to the US, regardless of the extradition treaty.

There are no charges against him in the US, although he fears he could be put on trial for espionage.

Yet The Washington Post reported in 2013 that the Justice Department hadconcluded there was no way it could prosecute him.

So, play me the world’s smallest violin.

$5 says he won’t be heading to Ecuador.

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Happy Magna Carta Day!

“Real rights are like Magna Carta: restraints on state power.”

@MarksteynOnline writes about The Field Where Liberty Was Sown

Security of the person, property rights, religious freedom, due process… The core animating principles of modern free societies began in that muddy field in Runnymede eight centuries ago. That’s why it’s the most important anniversary of the year: when the pampered, solipsistic beneficiaries of an 800-year inheritance start to lose the habits of liberty, only darkness lies ahead. Better to re-learn the old lessons while we still can.

The Magna Carta Libertatum: The Great Charter of Liberties was signed on June 15, 1215, 800 years ago.

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