John Adams was the gloomiest of the American founders, deeply pessimistic about man’s fallen nature. But when the Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776, even he got swept up in the mood.
“Through all the Gloom, I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory,” he wrote to his wife, Abigail. “I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Prosperity will triumph.”
He was spectacularly right, of course. The United States went on to become the richest and most successful country on Earth. And come to think of it, it is hard to come up with an example of a nation that over time has not become wealthier as a result of becoming more self-governing.
The British are an understated people, and Adams’s language strikes us as a just a tad florid. But we feel upbeat as we recover our independence from the European Union. Indeed, though you might not think so from the overseas coverage, Britain, at least outside of London, is bubbling with what passes here for extravagant excitement. Parties are happening all over the country to mark our departure. Complete strangers keep coming up to me and saying things such as, “Thank heaven it has all worked out.” (If you have spent any time in Britain, you will appreciate what a big deal it is for complete strangers to talk to you.)
True, the Remoaners (as we call the die-hard Remainers) who appear on the BBC and in the pages of the Financial Times are as glum as ever. Then again, they have been trying our patience with their apocalyptic visions for the past 3 1/2 years, and we have had the sense to ignore them.
Despite all the threats of economic meltdown, the United Kingdom is enjoying its lowest unemployment rate in 46 years. It has attracted more overseas investment than any country in the world except China. Manufacturing output, jobs, investment, business confidence, the stock exchange — all are shooting up. We have outgrown the eurozone for the past two years and are almost universally forecast to do so for the next two years — including by Goldman Sachs. That’s the same Goldman Sachs that spent the 2016 referendum campaign warning that Brexit would be a “disaster” that would force the company to reduce its London presence. Goldman Sachs recently opened its new 1 billion-pound European headquarters in … London.
We can, in short, look forward to steady growth, freer trade, and an overdue decentralization of powers. Maybe that isn’t “Rays of ravishing Light and Glory,” but it’s certainly something.
Once again, Britain has been saved by what Adams’s contemporary Edmund Burke called “the wisdom of unlettered men.” In 1940, working people ignored their supposed betters and backed Winston Churchill. In 1979, again defying the intellectual and cultural elites of their day, they came out for Margaret Thatcher. This time, too, they politely disregarded the hectoring, the bullying, and the doomsday forecasts and did what they knew to be right.
All of a sudden, the unrepentant Europhiles are starting to sound like a cult. The more unhinged among them are even refusing to handle the new 50-pence coin minted to mark Brexit. In a deliberate reference to America’s founders, the coin carries on its obverse the words “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.” How, you might wonder, could anyone be triggered by those words? Search me — you’ll have to ask the cultists.
If Britain has solid grounds for optimism, what of the EU 27? It depends, frankly, on how Eurocrats handle Brexit. At the moment, they are in the same sort of mood that George III was in after Yorktown — hurt and resentful. But it didn’t take long for the British government to realize that it would serve its own interests by being sympathetic to the new nation.
The administration formed under Lord Shelburne in 1782 decided to open ports in Britain and the Caribbean unconditionally to American vessels and to renounce all claim to the vast territories beyond the Appalachians. Adams, who was leading the negotiations alongside Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, was thunderstruck at the generosity. But Britain understood that rich neighbors make good customers. And so it proved. Transatlantic trade had doubled from its pre-Revolutionary level before the end of the century, hugely to the benefit of all involved.
Will the EU come to a similar realization? Will it, as happened in London after Yorktown, reform its own political structures? Most of the 27 national governments now want cordial and mutually beneficial terms with Britain. But many Brussels officials would rather see all sides suffer than watch a post-EU Britain succeed.
Eventually, they will accept that Britain is going to succeed regardless and that Britain’s success could benefit its neighbors. The only question is how long it takes for the penny to drop.
