Brexit Negotiations

JACOB REES-MOGG: My right honorable friend—and she is unquestionably honorable—said that we would leave the customs union. Annex II says otherwise. My right honorable friend said that she would maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom. A whole protocol says otherwise.  

My right honorable friend said that we would be out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Article 174 says otherwise. As what my right honorable friend says and what my right honorable friend does no longer match, should I not write to my right honorable friend the member for Altrincham and Sale West?  

HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory, America. Bonjour, hi, Canada. That was Jacob Rees-Mogg, member of Parliament in Great Britain, throwing down, as they say. His letter has gone in. Now, it's sometimes better to be lucky than good, but, of course, I'm both.  

And the Hillsdale Dialogue is usually the last radio hour of the week, but I'm off tomorrow—Bob Frantz will be in—so I asked Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, to join me on Thursday in the third hour. Now, Dr. Arnn is usually quite grumpy and refuses to do things like that.  

But perhaps he intuited that there would be a crisis in Parliament, which is like crack cocaine to an addict—to get Larry Arnn to come on and talk about this. There's probably nobody else in America who knows more about this sort of stuff than Dr. Larry Arnn, because he was part of the Churchill biography team with Sir Martin Gilbert.  

He studies English history. And we are in the middle of—Dr. Larry Arnn, good morning to you. I didn't mean to call you grumpy—though, of course, truth is a defense. That we are— 

LARRY ARNN: Good Lord.  

HEWITT: Open with an artillery barrage, right?  

ARNN: Aren't you something this morning?  

HEWITT: And then go over the top and advance quickly. Explain to people—when Rees-Mogg said, shall I send a letter to my—he's talking about the Committee of whatever they call it—1920. What's going on?  

ARNN: Well, the 1922 Committee is named after an important and famous event in 1922. Stanley Baldwin, later nemesis of Winston Churchill and a colleague too, challenged Andrew Bonar Law for the leadership of the Tory Party. And the 1922 Committee is made up of the people who are Conservative members of the British Parliament—of the House of Commons.  

And so there's, right now, somewhere around 330 of them—330 of them I think. And that is the committee, because the way it works in Britain is that every member of Parliament, including Theresa May, runs for an individual district. And then, after they're all elected, whoever they are, however many they are, they get together in the 1922 Committee.  

And they decide which of them is going to be their leader. And that's how prime ministers get elected. They are choosing the prime minister if they have a majority in the House of Commons, which the Conservatives do, but only by a whisker, in a coalition with some people from Northern Ireland.  

So anyway, the point is, if they were to defeat her—well, here's the wisdom about it: The old saw in British politics is, the Labour Party always talks about changing its leader and seldom does. The British Conservative Party never talks about it and often does.  

HEWITT: And often does. Usually by regicide, right?  

ARNN: Yeah, that's right. That's right.  

HEWITT: Normally, you wake up in the morning, and you think, I'm prime minister. And, by the end of the night, you're not.  

ARNN: And here's the thing to point out: Jacob Rees-Mogg is one of the likely challengers and favored by friends of mine in London, who are people of good opinion.  

HEWITT: Oh, really? Interesting.  

ARNN: Yeah, yeah. They like him. And he's smart. And they think—Gove is his name. Michael Gove, whom I favored for a while, has faded. And they think—everybody likes Boris. But everybody thinks Boris is odd. And, by everybody, I mean just people I talk to. My wife is English, so I have links over there. 

HEWITT: I want people to understand that Dr. Arnn went to the United Kingdom at New College and helped Dr. Gilbert. And he tricked Penny into marrying him. And he tricked Penny's father into saying yes.  

And so, he brought back the best of England with him to the United States. And so, she advises him on these matters. Jacob Rees-Mogg, I have said to the audience this morning, sounds like every American's idea of what a British member of Parliament ought to sound like, right?  

ARNN: Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's very good. And his statement this morning—or last night—was lethal. And here's why. The burden of his statement is that it's not really Brexit, and we're not really leaving—and losing any chance—any say-so—when to leave in the future.  

And it splits the United Kingdom because Northern Ireland is treated differently under the deal than England. And so he's raising the question of the United Kingdom. What that means is England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  

The Conservative majority, which is made up in part out of some votes in the Northern Ireland Conservative Party—and so, if that party decides they don't like this, they by themselves can break the government.  

HEWITT: Indeed.  

LARRY ARNN: And I think he was appealing to them yesterday.  

HEWITT: I sit here as the son of a son of a son of an Ulsterman. And, on Armistice Day, I pointed out that his brother was the older brother, the one who came here, my great-grandfather. He got the farm. And his boys went off to fight in World War I. The brother-who-came-to-America's boys went off to fight in World War II.  

And that's what happened to everyone. But Northern Ireland is Ulster. And it's Protestant and Catholic. And it is, thank God, at peace. But it is part of the United Kingdom. And it ain't leaving anytime soon.  

Now, there is no border. You can drive from Dublin to Londonderry. I mean, you can do that. But this deal does treat Northern Ireland differently, and that raises a fundamental question of the identity of the Brits. And that's why I don't think it's going to pass.  

ARNN: Yeah. And remember, it's Great Britain. So England is the biggest part of the home island of the British Isles—and then Scotland and Wales, which, you know, have different languages.  

HEWITT: Yes. And neither of them intelligible, as far as I can tell.  

ARNN: Right, that's right. Yeah. Everybody speaks English. But lots of people speak Welsh. And so, Great Britain is those three. And then Northern Ireland—the history between Great Britain and Ireland is turbulent. And Britain did things that they shouldn't have done, and Ireland did things they shouldn't have done.  

HEWITT: Oh my gosh. In the early 1600s, boy, did they do things they shouldn't have done in Ulster Plantation. But they did them and that is 400 years ago.  

ARNN: That's right. And so Northern Ireland, your family—I don't understand you now.  

HEWITT: Half of my family.  

ARNN: Half your family is. The other half is Catholic.  

HEWITT: Half of my family is green Ireland from down in County Down, but a lot of it is up in Ulster.  

ARNN: And the orange part of Ireland is Protestant. And that divide is important. Although one of the reasons that the violence has subsided between Ireland and Northern Ireland—is the proper term for them—is because the religious wars have subsided. People are not as apt to kill each other over their religion as they used to be—at least among the Christians, not so much among some others. And so, that's subsided, and yet the links between Great Britain and Northern Ireland seem to me very strong—stronger than ever.  

HEWITT: To a certain extent, in my family, the Hewitts of St. Field and the Millers of County Clare came together in America, which didn't give a lick for this stuff, and they got married at a side altar. And we've finally gotten there in Ireland. And to exacerbate this problem is to me the great evil of what the EU has done.  

They should have begun this with an idea of, OK, what's the most important thing? That we not screw up the Easter—the Good Friday accords. That was the most important thing in my view because England was leaving. They voted to. They're not going to stay. So, how do we begin this negotiation without reigniting sectarian—that's not that long ago, Larry. You were probably there when cars blew up, and people died, and they tried to kill Maggie Thatcher. And they did kill Lord Mountbatten.  

ARNN: You see, there’s a long history of this. The first really great peace with Ireland and the Irish Republican Army was made by Winston Churchill with Michael Collins. And there's a film about that guy. It's pretty good.  

HEWITT: He's everywhere. Liam Neeson as Michael Collins. Great film.  

ARNN: That's right. And so that was made in 1922, if I get the date right. But the more modern agreements really did manage to put an end to the violence. And the reason it had reignited after calming down for a long time is that the Irish Republican Army came back as a Marxist organization. And so it was kind of radical, left-wing politics funded in part by the Kremlin.  

And that has calmed down, and that is precious. But, you know, if you ask, “Why won't the European Union take a soft line about this or a reasonable line about this?” Well, they've got a lot of countries wanting to leave. And they have an ideology that wishes to transcend the nation. And the trouble with that idea is that, if there is no such thing as a people, then there cannot be consent of the governed.  

HEWITT: And, boy, when we come back, we're going to dive into this as well as increasing the store of knowledge of every journalist in America, who now is 100% smarter about the Committee of 1922 than they were when they got in their car this morning. And that's why we have Dr. Larry Arnn and why you ought to go visit Hillsdale.edu for all things Hillsdale and for all of our conversations dating back, I don't know, forever now—to HughforHillsdale.com if you want to binge-listen to quality history and learn things like the Committee of 1922, rather than watch talking heads on TV fumble around, trying to figure out what’s going on. Ask Larry Arnn—he’ll tell you!  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt. I am joined in an early edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue this week. And all things Hillsdale, including an application to go to that august university, available at Hillsdale.edu. Their online courses are superb. Many of them are taught by my guest, president of Hillsdale College Larry Arnn. I just tweeted out, Dr. Arnn: “Up now, Dr. Arnn, president of Hillsdale, who has forgotten more about UK history and politics than all of the talking heads on all of the American cable channels rambling on about what is happening in Commons today and tomorrow and Committee of 1922.”  

And I want to come back to that in a moment—maybe after the break—about how we choose a government in Great Britain, or how they choose a parliamentarian. But it's been reported that they're getting their 48 letters. Michael Gove, as you pointed out, who is the Minister of the Environment, has been offered the Ministry of Brexit. Now, would you explain to people what these ministries are, and what they're shuffling as people like Dominic Raab, who's the future of the Tories, exit? Number 10 this morning—say, done, finished?  

ARNN: If you just imagine 350 or so politicians going into a room to decide who's in charge, there's likely to be a lot of politics in the room. And so, the way you become prime minister—the way you win—is you have some friends who will stand by you for sure. And then you have some enemies, and you can give them cabinet posts.  

HEWITT: That's actually wonderfully put.  

ARNN: That's what you do. And so the prime minister, when she—to name the greatest one, Margaret Thatcher, and the current one, Theresa May—when she sits down with her cabinet, then she's in a room with a few people who she can rely on—who really like her—but a majority, usually, who want her job. And the ones she picks to give these cabinet posts are ones who can bring votes with them—other members—because you're trying to put a coalition together to get the most votes. Kevin McCarthy just did something similar in becoming the House Minority leader the other day.  

But these cabinet posts are not like the ones in America because, first of all, there's no Senate to confirm them, but, second, they have some degree of autonomy. It's difficult for the prime minister to make them do things. The prime minister is not like the president. She can't fire them, at least without peril to her government, and this is an age of prime ministerial superiority, relatively speaking, to other times in Britain. But it's not as powerful as the presidency over the executive branch.  

Let's say Boris Johnson is foreign minister. He's not anymore, but let's say he was very popular, and everybody loved him. And he did a lot of favors for people with this job. A better example—let me use it instead—is chancellor of the exchequer, who's like the secretary of the treasury except—also rolled into it—budget chairman of the House and appropriations chairman. Geoffrey Howe was Margaret Thatcher's one. And that meant that, if you were a member, you would go to him, and you could ask for things and he might put them in the budget. And so, he had a big base of support. Well, he always got along with Margaret Thatcher, but, if he hadn't, he would have been hard to fire.  

HEWITT: Right.  

ARNN: And so, she's looking—she's floundering around, looking for people who were Brexit from the beginning—true blue—to get them to take that job. And they keep quitting after they see the deal she puts up. And so, she's like Jacob Rees-Mogg; she's trying to preserve her majority, and he's trying to take it away. And that means that people who might follow Michael Gove—that would be votes for her. And then he would have to do it, you know? And also he's lost support. He was pro-Brexit in the election, but he supported her deal that led her first Brexit minister to resign.  

HEWITT: It is a terrible choice, I think, for Conservative members of her cabinet because I think it's a branding choice. You're never going to escape what you do today. In the history of your future Conservative Party membership, you either are going to have been against her or for her on this day. As Susan Glasser said last hour, this is the day she'd been trying to avoid since she began the prime minister. Stay tuned! Larry Arnn returns as a crisis envelops Britain on the Hillsdale Dialogue here on The Hugh Hewitt Show.  

Welcome back, America. It’s Hugh Hewitt from the ReliefFactor.com studio. It is the Hillsdale Dialogue a day early as I'm off tomorrow. Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, is with me. And I'm actually glad, because what we're about to see today in the United Kingdom is the fall or the endurance of a government? I suspect the former. And it's very rare in history to have such a day, and it's very rare, actually, for someone on the radio to have someone who knows what he's talking about when it comes to British politics. And I happen to have Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, who's forgotten more about British history and politics than everybody else combined. I see Piers Morgan talking to Joe Scarborough right now. That's going to be bad information from Piers Morgan. I don't actually think he can spell Churchill.  

But let's talk a little bit about the Arnn saying of 2016—fundamental things are afoot. Last hour, a woman of the left but very talented, Susan Glasser of The New Yorker, said it looks like a crisis in the West. Macron is at 23%, the president is fighting with Europe, the United Kingdom is falling apart, Italy is Italy, and, meanwhile, the Russians and the Chinese have developed hypersonic weapons that can threaten the United States, according the National Defense Commission. OK, let's assume it's a crisis of the West. What does a British government do? What did it do in 1940 when confronted with a real, on-the-ground, the-treads-of-the-tanks-are-rolling crisis in the West?  

ARNN: Well, the big thing, though, is it did it too late, right? So that's what Churchill always said about that war where he won his glory—that it was the unnecessary war, and, of course, it cost Britain its leadership of the world—and because the cost of that war was terrible. But what it did was that in wartime, when the Second World War broke out in September 1939, there was a huge, overwhelming Conservative majority in the House of Commons, and there had been for almost a decade. And it had been refreshed in 1936.  

HEWITT: By the man who won the original 1922 vote, Stanley Baldwin, the vicar.  

ARNN: That's right, that's right. And so, they're riding high. But then the war starts, right? And events are always terribly important in politics, and we don't know what the events are going to be. But the events were that the war just went awful. And Chamberlain lost his position as prime minister because, two weeks after he said Hitler missed the bus, Hitler came west, and everybody was on the run.  

HEWITT: And so, what happens when a prime minister realizes they've lost the confidence of the government, the Parliament, and the people? What actually, physically happens?  

ARNN: Well, what happened in 1940 is not the typical case, so I'll just tell you what generally happens. What happened to James Callahan when Margaret Thatcher defeated his government and became prime minister? So, you have a vote in the House of Commons, and, if it's a major thing, then it will be called a confidence vote. And sometimes they play games with that, and the prime minister will lose a vote but not call it a confidence vote. But that just increases the pressure in the House. And, remember, they stand and face each other, these parties, and they get together. And, at times like this, they'll be in there today, right?  

HEWITT: Oh my gosh, were they in there this morning when Rees-Mogg was talking and May was responding.  

ARNN: Shouting at each other, right? And talking pretty well—not maybe as great as the old days, but well. And better than we do over here— 

HEWITT: Lots better than we do.  

ARNN: We don't have debating societies anymore, and that's a crisis we can talk about, because there are things we could do to get that back that would improve the country greatly.  

HEWITT: Has Hillsdale College abandoned debate?  

ARNN: No, no. We always win.  

HEWITT: OK. You just know when to fight.  

ARNN: Yeah. Well, with us, debate is a synonym for victory.  

HEWITT: OK. I love humility. Good, that's good.  

ARNN: Our debate teams are pretty good. And they won't shut up!  

HEWITT: About how good they are. Kind of like a Patriots fan. OK. So they lose the confidence vote?  

ARNN: Yeah. And then you go to the king and resign.  

HEWITT: Now, stop for a second. There are some Steelers fans out there. Why do they go to the king? I thought the king was a symbol. And I watched The Crown on Netflix, and the king doesn't get to do anything.  

ARNN: Oh yeah, he's very important here. The king does a lot, actually, but one of the things he does is he decides, on his discretion, who he invites to form a government.  

HEWITT: Isn't it great, Larry Arnn? —Queen Elizabeth was photographed with a tear coming down her cheek at the Armistice commemoration. It's the 100th anniversary of the war that was fought to save the United Kingdom and she is going to be asked to summon someone to kiss hands. Explain that. I mean, what a monumental decision she has at the age of 92, having been Queen since before I was born and you were born.  

ARNN: That's right. If the majority is broken in the House of Commons, as happened with Margaret Thatcher—that's very dramatic because, back then, they didn't televise the thing. But they would put up pictures of the debate and you could hear them. And Mrs. Thatcher—she just turned into this terrier, and she just hammered James Callahan for months. And she broke him, finally, and broke the Labor majority.  

It's an interesting thing about James Callahan, by the way, that, late in Winston Churchill's career, young James Callahan, Labor—Socialist minister—member, was one of Churchill's main hecklers. And so, I knew that at the time, and I was living in Britain at the time, and I was watching that every night. I was watching her kick him, and I was thinking, you know, vengeance is mine.  

HEWITT: The Churchill people.  

ARNN: Then he goes and tells her that his government's over, and she calls an election. And then she appoints an interim, usually from his party, while the election is happening. And then, after the election, everybody counts votes, and the king or the queen counts votes. And who won? And then they know—it's in the paper—because somebody has run.  

When they go into an election, the people know—if my party wins who will be our prime minister? And so, Margaret Thatcher went to see Elizabeth the Second and became the first woman prime minister. And they go and kiss hands, that means they kiss the hand of the queen, and that's the expression. And other times when you go see the queen it's just called an audience, but if you go for that purpose, you go to kiss hands. So, you and I are never going to get to kiss hands.  

HEWITT: No, we're not going to be there.  

ARNN: We're not going to get to do it. So, she goes there, and she drives up in her car at Buckingham Palace, and then she comes out, and she does a little interview there and another one when she gets to 10 Downing Street. And Margaret Thatcher came out of Buckingham Palace quoting St. Francis of Assisi. It was very lovely. She was very good, let's say. If you want to understand what Teresa May does not have, just watch any good speech, just about any speech of Margaret Thatcher on the internet and on YouTube. Go watch one because they're just awesome.  

And the thing about her—we were talking in the break about this—I think that woman in Arizona—McSally—might have lost because she was not a definite person, right? In other words, one thing you need, one standard you need to set is you need to know and say, in clear terms, what you're for. In divided times, that will, of course, be controversial.  

And Margaret Thatcher, she just was not—she said to me one time—I happened—I had the privilege to know her for a long time. And she said to me once, “Well, I've got to go, Dr. Arnn.” I was about to introduce her at something, and she asked to see me. She said, “I'm always nervous before I speak.” And I said, “Ma'am, that is unthinkable to me.” She said, “Why?” And I said, “Do you not know how you seem?” 

HEWITT: So today, if Elizabeth the Second is called upon to summon someone, and we know that fundamental things are afoot—I don't know who this person is, but I hope she summons someone who is definite. Do you agree with that?  

ARNN: Oh yeah. Yeah. Because Churchill, who was also a very great man, believed that your business as a politician was to state what you're for in the clearest terms—emphatically —and also exaggerate it sometimes, because what that does is set up a debate, and that empowers the people to choose. And he lost elections. He won the great majority of the ones he fought, but he lost significant elections—a big one in 1945—and he always generously and graciously and willingly bowed to the will of the people.  

And so, if you're always mincing and trying to find the middle ground between opposite extremes—mostly, by the way, that is what you're supposed to do. Most things get done by compromise. But, on the questions of the day, where you're deciding who is going to govern in the direction of the country, you should take a strong line. So, on this Brexit thing—I think Theresa May's mistake was that it was neither one thing nor the other. Are we going to leave or are we going to stay? Of course, you could see why she would think that, because the vote was very narrow. What was it?  

HEWITT: 52-48. Hold on that. We're going to come back and talk about the future of the United Kingdom. I need to take a break. Dr. Larry Arnn is my guest. All things Hillsdale are at Hillsdale.edu, and we’re going to talk about what it means for Britain, and you're learning more in this hour with Larry Arnn than you will listening to every other person talking about this every other airway, because he actually knows what he's talking about.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt. That music means Dr. Larry Arnn is with me. It's the Hillsdale Dialogue, a day early and oh-so-well-timed for the breaking news of the morning—comes from across the pond. As Great Britain struggles with a crisis of identity that will probably lead to the collapse of the Theresa May government, members are exiting left and right, the Committee of 1922 has been summoned. If you go back and listen the beginning of this show at HughforHillsdale.com, you'll understand that.  

Dr. Arnn, I want to go to 30,000 feet. I think this is a very important day for the West. I think this is the day when the EU is served its dessert. And, by that, I mean they were intended to prevent war, and they are now at the occasion of great conflict and it's because they overreached. And I believe that they're about to get a comeuppance from Great Britain even if it costs Great Britain. Do you agree or disagree with me?  

ARNN: Yeah, I do. I do agree with you, and here's why: So, Labor Party is radically weakened because they have lost Scotland to the Scottish National Party. And Scotland has always been the makeweight to offset the Conservatives’ advantage in England, especially in southern England outside the central urban areas. It's not clear where they're going to go. And then, the people voted—in the Conservative strongholds, except in suburbs and London—the people voted to leave Brexit—to leave the European Union.  

Now, if the Conservatives don't do that, that's devastating to them, right? Because they can't afford to lose those people. That's the heart of their— 

HEWITT: That's the Shire! Those are the hobbits!  

ARNN: That's it, and so they can't—they have to do it. In the end, and finally, they have to do it. And, if you just look at the politics of America, they're about nationalism. And in Britain, and in France, as you were saying earlier, and in Italy, and in Germany—everywhere. Why are they about nationalism? Well, because this internationalism has muddied—to whom are governments accountable?  

HEWITT: I hate to interrupt you, but it does seem to me obvious that that which animated the Trump revolution is animating the fall of the May government—which is, people want to govern themselves. And they do not—they will not—give in.  

ARNN: That's my point. And, in order to have consent of the governed, you have to have a people—there have to be some people. And the government can't pick who they are. That's what the king did when he gave a new constitution to Canada. And then he expanded the borders of Canada southward to take land and people away from those troublesome American colonists. So, you can't have that, right? And I think people are rebelling against that.  

HEWITT: And do you agree the people who resist on our team, on our side, who understand it our way, do so because their friends on the other side roll their eyes at them? And that they really lack the ability to say to the Davos people and to the bankers—and I don't mean a cartel, I'm not talking about the Bilderbergers. I'm talking about the people who made a lot of money in an international economy, and they are of all races and ethnicities, but they live in the coasts. And they like the way it is. And they don't see the Chinese or the Russians, they don't understand the world, and the Shire does.  

ARNN: Well, you know, human actions, yours and mine included, are made up out of a combination of principles and interest. Example: Hillsdale College has a principle about taking money from the federal government. It has an interest in that because it's famous for it now. When it first did it, it didn't have an interest in it. It looked like death itself.  

So, these people, first of all—the claims for this internationalism are we've got to get past these devastating wars that divide the world. And we've got to have one-world community so we won't use the tools of modern science to kill each other—all of each other.  

To this day—this week—I have read quotes from senior people in the Brussels—European government talking about how this has prevented us from having further world wars. And those are obviously good causes. And the European Union movement began more than anywhere else with a speech in Surrey by Winston Churchill called “The United States of Europe.” And he never wanted Britain to be in that thing, but he wanted that to happen.  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: And so there are arguments for this thing, and those arguments are arguments of principle, and they have to be taken seriously. But the interest that you talk about also exists. And, you know, what I think is—this is an extended subject, because Winston Churchill was for the European Union and against it. And I think I can explain the terms of that.  

HEWITT: Next week.  

ARNN: I could write something long about that.  

HEWITT: Please do. And if you are listening to me right now, any member of the media, don't spend all day in Wikipedia. Just call up Larry Arnn. He'll tell you what it means. He'll tell you what's going on. They ought to have a live feed in your office at Hillsdale College today—put you on Skype and let you educate Americans as to what is going on. Thank you, Larry Arnn, for being here today. I actually mean that. Normally, I'm mean to you, but I actually mean that. Thank you for making your way here early.