Did Brexit Break Britain?

Today marks 10 years since Britain’s Brexit vote. David Cameron was then prime minister. He held the office six years. Since then, no one has lasted more than three. Britain is heading for its seventh leader in a decade. It’s become a basket case.

• Was Brexit the moment it all went wrong?

[BRIEF]

“Take back control” was the slogan of the Vote Leave campaign. Britain did that on June 23, 2016. But there was no clear vision of what to do with that control.

• Before Brexit, Britain’s mediocre leaders could manage its decline, with the European Union often in the driving seat. After Brexit, they were suddenly accountable for everything.

Brexit also pitted politicians against people. Three quarters of members of Parliament who expressed an opinion were against Brexit. The unelected experts and technocrats who run the country massively favored the EU. The Brexit vote did not suddenly remove these men from power.

• The vote forced the leadership, kicking and screaming, down a path they did not want to go. Of course, it didn’t work out.

The Brexit vote exposed Britain’s leadership crisis—it did not cause it. Now, the problem seems so bad no one really wants to solve it.

• Andy Burnham, likely Britain’s next prime minister, doesn’t want to take over until September. Keir Starmer, however, doesn’t want to hang around and will force him to take office in July.
• “Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand.” That’s the attitude brought on by a leadership crisis described in Isaiah 3. It’s the reality in modern Britain.

Britain needs radical change, but the nation is bitterly divided on what the change is, and there are no statesmen to deliver it. “The kind of radical reform which transformed Britain under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair is now impossible,” warned veteran commentator Andrew Neil.

• Seventy percent of the national budget goes to four things: benefits, health care, military and interest on the debt (now 8 percent of government spending). Benefits and pensions are politically untouchable. Britain worships its National Health Service; to trim that would be political suicide. And no one wants to further cut the military.
• For 10 years, governments have tried to tinker with the remaining 30 percent but have achieved nothing.

“You cannot transform a nation in decline by concentrating on the marginal and the insignificant,” wrote Neil. “It is not clear what will change this.” That’s a sad admission of despair.

God condemns Britain’s leaders. Hosea 5 begins by declaring that the leaders—“the priests” and “house of the king”—are a snare and a net for the nation.

“God is putting the blame where it belongs,” writes Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in his booklet Hosea—Reaping the Whirlwind. “Who has led the nation of Britain astray? It has been the ministers, rulers and even the royal family. The leaders of the nation have been a snare to the people.”

Britain was ensnared by the EU. It is still ensnared by debt and mass migration.

“O Israel, thou has destroyed thyself,” God says (Hosea 13:9), but finishes by noting: “but in me is thine help.” That is the only way out of Britain’s self-inflicted leadership crisis.

Iran war update

• U.S. sanctions waivers now allow Iran to sell oil in U.S. dollars, the United States Treasury Department announced yesterday. This is the first time it has allowed this since 2016 through 2018 under Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
• The sanctions relief comes hours after Vice President JD Vance claimed Iran had agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor its nuclear program. Iranian state media disputed the claim, stating Iran hasn’t made any such new commitments.

Remember the Alan Greenspan Era of America’s Economy

Alan Greenspan, who died yesterday at age 100, shaped America’s current economy possibly more than any other man in recent history. The bbc yesterday called him the “architect of the modern American economy.” What is his legacy?

• The longest-serving Federal Reserve chairman, Greenspan’s tenure from 1987–2006 coincided with four presidents. He saw 18 years of economic growth and helped bring the U.S. economy through several difficulties, ranging from the October 1987 stock market crash to the dot-com crash in 2000.

Though highly regarded, his policies also laid the groundwork for the fulfillment of Bible prophecies regarding America’s downfall.

• While he was in office, the money supply increased as much as 300 percent, causing significant devaluation of the dollar.

As the Trumpet wrote in 2006 when he stepped down: “One of the not-so-obvious but enormously negative consequences of Mr. Greenspan’s economic policy has been the continual erosion of the dollar’s value. His guiding principle of managed low inflation, not zero inflation, is one factor that has led to the colossal loss in purchasing power of the dollar.”

• Since he stepped down, the problem has gotten even worse, and the dollar has lost 40 percent of its value.

Greenspan liked keeping interest rates as low as possible, providing the economy with easy money. This fuels borrowing by both the government and businesses.

• Throughout Greenspan’s tenure, the national debt tripled. Government borrowing contributes to inflation and dollar devaluation.

Speculation fueled by low interest rates also leads to economic bubbles that will eventually pop.

• The dot-com bubble swelled due to a low-interest-rate environment. Its crash had catastrophic ramifications, such as a 2 percent rise in unemployment and a recession in 2001.
• The current AI boom has also been caused by low interest rates, as subsequent Federal Reserve chairs continued Greenspan’s policies.

America’s financial future is in jeopardy. The U.S. national debt has surpassed $39 trillion; inflation is at a three-year high.

• Decades of easy money will exact a catastrophic price and culminate in a financial crisis that makes the 2008 crisis, which occurred in part due to Greenspan’s easy money policies, seem minuscule.

The root cause of this financial danger is not Alan Greenspan but rather America’s disobedience to God’s laws regarding finance. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 warn that financial curses will affect America due to its failure to look to God. Read more in our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches America’s Economic Collapse.”

IN OTHER NEWS

EU to hand Afghans over to the Taliban? Five Taliban officials will travel to Brussels to meet with EU officials to discuss deporting Afghan citizens from the European Union, the New York Times reported yesterday. The EU is searching for ways to solve its migrant crisis, a search that will ultimately lead it to find a more authoritarian government.