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Brexit: The inevitable happens

By Abdu Rafiu
20 February 2020   |   3:29 am
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the late iron lady, has won at last. Britain is out of the European Union. Mr. Boris Johnson collected back the United Kingdom’s membership card of the European Union on 31 January, that is 20 days ago.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Photo by Ben STANSALL / AFP)

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the late iron lady, has won at last. Britain is out of the European Union. Mr. Boris Johnson collected back the United Kingdom’s membership card of the European Union on 31 January, that is 20 days ago. But for the floods ravaging parts of the country, the joy and excitement of the Brexit triumph would have been celebration galore—all the way. As Allison Pearson of London Daily Telegraph seized by the air of victory, put it: “There were celebrations aplenty.”

Writing in her Tuesday weekly column, she says: “Well, thank God, it’s all over.” Overjoyed for words, she writes: “That is all I can say. WE DID IT! (Capital letters hers.) Well played, British people, out at last. I am so proud of us today.” Nigel Farage , another columnist in the same newspaper, Daily Telegraph, describes the exit as the most significant thing since Henry V111 took Britain out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1521 and pronounced what is today known as Church of England into existence in its place. In Nigel Farage’s words: “In terms of our position in the world, certainly for England, this is the most significant thing since Henry V111 took us out of the Church of Rome and tonight we’re leaving the Treaty of Rome.”

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gazing at her crystal ball was ill-at ease that Britain was going with all her soul into the European Union. She saw tomorrow, Britain’s today. But as it often happens, her discomfiture was her undoing. She fell and had to vacate 10 Downing Street for John Major. The last straw that broke her camel’s back was her stance on Europe which counseled gradualism. She was opposed to one common currency, and to subjugating the monarchy to republicanism however whittled down the concept may have become. Even today one of the unbreakable threads keeping the United Kingdom united is the towering dignified carriage of the Queen, despite pressure from Scotland and the devolution of powers from Westminster to Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

I recall while Thatcher was swept away by the European Union gale, The Wall Street Journal reviewing her 11 years in the saddle and her achievements, said: “There will never be another Thatcher.” Newspapers of liberal persuasion were however predictably not convinced. The economic editor of The London Observer had this to say, for example: “What cant it all is!” He went on: “If the million that have flowed from the lips and word processor of Michael Heseltine during the past five years mean anything, they mean that he believes Thatcherism has been an economic and social catastrophe…” He went on in the column captioned “The awful inheritance of 11 mean years”, “…the contenders would do the decent thing and be economical with the lies. But they are muttering about the need to build on the achievement of the Thatcher decade. British businessmen loved their tax cuts and enjoyed the freedom to print their own salaries. Many went through a phase of thinking the millennium had arrived…The more thoughtful were never convinced.” Not even Daily Mail, a paper known for her Conservative bent would spare Margaret Thatcher. A woman writer even jeered at Maggie, saying she expected Mrs. Thatcher to count fall of Berlin Wall among her achievements! And Paul Johnson also of Daily Mail playing the gender card to the last, said after thanking her for the advancement of women: “If women have risen, it’s been in spite of her, not because of her. In 11 years, Thatcher has delivered the same message to female voters: I have no mercy.”

Another writer in The Observer had a different view: “Her physical qualities may in part explain the remarkable popularity she enjoys abroad. She has given the country a new standing and the term Great Britain no longer sounds ironic to foreign ears, but in a way she was like Gorbachev, and was much more admired abroad than at home, a prophetess in every country but her own.” He added: “No leader in recent history has been so savaged and derided, but then no leader in recent history has put her personal stamp so firmly on government policy. As a result when things went wrong people knew exactly who to blame, and she has been blamed just for everything, including the hole in the ozone layer…but she has brought lasting benefits to Britain.

“She has startled the country out of its cozy lethargy and has set pace out of keeping with the national tempo. Liberals dislike her because she believes that the Kingdom of Heaven is attainable right here on earth; feminists because she has proved that every avenue is open to a woman with intelligence, ambition and spirit. Britain’s greatest years are associated in the popular mind with the rule of women, and to the glory of the Elizabethan age and Victorian Britain will be added Thatcher’s Britain.”

As I did state at the time, in 1990, there can be as many views on Mrs. Thatcher as there are many people on the face of the earth. Each person’s view can only be governed by the degree of his inner worth which, not dulled, alone brings clarity. A person can only see in accordance with the clarity of his vision. A person wearing a tainted spectacle, for example, cannot see and enjoy the sparkling brightness and majesty of white colour.

Mrs. Thatcher brandished a catalogue of her achievements in Parliament in her valedictory speech, saying that many Britons were living in their own houses through deliberate government policies. Those in council flats were encouraged to buy them. Control has been given to Britons over their own lives which were freed from the stranglehold of the trade unions. To Mrs. Thatcher, responsibility was the word. “Choice’ and ‘freedom’ were codes over which there should be no compromise—choice of a person from options in life and freedom to take decisions. Thus her compatriots were moved from personal to impersonal—each person bearing responsibility for his life. She argued the virtues of social and economic liberty as the only clue to reversing economic retrogression and decay. How many children a person decides to have is choice, but you do not turn round and say the state with taxpayers’ money must provide them with free milk.

Such intrinsic value Mrs. Thatcher sought to drive home to Britons and the world at large would certainly not go down well with the indolent and the dependent, for it is ever enticing to depend on others than to cultivate one’s own abilities, and yet there lies development of oneself and the society at large. In self-reliance alone lies progress, the bitter lesson she sought to pass to Europe. Friendship and union of states can only be built on the principle of equal worth and give and take. In any friendship or union of states, a party that continually takes from the other party without giving will always bring about disharmony because it violates the Law of Balance. Such an attitude leads to dependence and enslavement of the weaker party by the calculating stronger party. In many parts of the world efforts are made assiduously to upload people’s burden on the state or a section of the union which has been misled through false concepts and teachings about her responsibilities to her citizens. Any policy that relieves a people of their own self-effort is luring them to sleep, giving them crutches on which to walk instead of their own healthy limbs. It is poison. A good father who loves his son is not one who gives him fish but the one who either teaches him how to fish or sends him out to learn how to do so. Mrs. Thatcher’s position on the European Union was, therefore, a sound one as long as she was not opposed to free trade and was not racist. In the year of the Lord 2020, Mrs. Thatcher has been vindicated.

Each people must be allowed to keep their identity. There is beauty in variety. In any case, if Nature had intended that all peoples should be one, it would have made them one people. No people are superior to the other; more mature, yes. All peoples are supposed to stand side by side respecting one another. They have been separated by their varied levels of inner development and radiance so that no one people should disturb or hinder the other in their development. They can cooperate; they can work with one another and learn from one another, but should not suppress divergences or overrun the other party.

Mrs. Thatcher knew a united Europe would lead to controlled economy and a political union which harbours the danger of, once more, envy and enslavement of people who were fleeing from the clutches of socialism and communism, which is from one state control to another. From her stargazing, she could see that the form was what would be different; the substance would be the same. Ignorance led to the formation of several nation states, with the protagonists believing they were wiser, and still are, than the creator and could therefore tamper with the lawfulness in Creation. This has led to tension and wars. In the times in which we are, surrounded by the Rays streaming down from the Power of the Holy Spirit, all such contraptions will collapse, and the incorruptible and self-acting lawfulness anchored in Creation will restore all lands to normalcy and right all wrongs. It is the Age of the Holy Spirit, the Justice of the Most High.

The separation is like any other disentanglement at a great cost to the UK. Terms of the separation are still being negotiated. It is to last 11 months. Such discussions centre around customs Union, immigration, movement of people and goods. The British citizens will no longer be citizens of EU with its accoutrements. UK will require to pay parting charges amounting to37pounds sterling which is better than the yearly dues of 7billion pounds. The struggle fell on two Prime Ministers—David Cameron and Theresa May. It was a worthwhile struggle for disentanglement. I congratulate Boris Johnson on his doggedness.

After stepping down from premiership, I strongly longed to see Mrs. Thatcher return to being a woman. For clearly 15 years, first as Minister of Education when she was given the appellation Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, then as Tory leader and later Prime Minister, she was strictly in man’s sphere of activities into which a woman would be ill-advised to enter—in her own interest and the interest of her people. The people would be dragged down. The woman is to hold man and turn his gaze upwards and facilitate the flow of Light radiations from Above, to ennoble and disperse Darkness. A woman in men’s activities is bound to suppress her womanliness and steel her being. We are in the Age of Enlightenment which is a concomitant feature of the Age of the Holy Spirit in which mankind is to be led to all Truths. We know that the harm of women dabbling in masculine activities, where the harm is not immediately apparent, the seed is already sown and must bear rotten fruits some day. In the present time, sooner than later!

Note: Amotekun piece is being stepped down as it is still developing.

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