The UK has been on a wild ride this week, with the future of Brexit teetering on a razor’s edge. Prime Minister Boris Johnson expelled 21 members from the Conservative Party after they voted for a bill preventing the UK from leaving the EU without a deal, while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party – which regularly demanded a general election against the hapless Theresa May – sank (or at least postponed) Johnson’s plan to call a general election.
Rev. Richard Turnbull of the UK-based Centre of Enterprise, Markets, and Ethics (CEME), explains these often-confusing twists and turns in a new essay for the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website. After clearly explaining each of the moves Parliament has made, he lists the next likely steps and why he is “nervous” about the future of Brexit.
He adds that there are two lessons Christians should draw from the political chaos:
The extraordinary events unfolding in the UK Parliament should remind us all of two important truths. First, we have to continually make the case for economic liberty and free trade. The EU customs union embodies neither. But Brexit sets us free to pursue trade deals that will benefit us and the developing world. Second, there is an inextricable link between economic and political freedom. European supranationalist interventionists are trying to trap the UK in the EU via the backstop. And it seems no accident that the Brexiteers most strongly asserting UK independence from Brussels also deeply embrace free trade.
(Photo credit: Chatham House. This photo has been cropped. CC BY 2.0.)
