A Fourth of July reflection on Brexit
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to resume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that to secure the people’s rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever a form of government becomes destructive of this end, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government on such principles as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. For when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursues invariably the same object, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of this kingdom; and such is now the necessity which constrains it to alter its former system of government.
The history of the Bureaucrats of Brussels is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A bureaucracy whose character is thus marked is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which announces our separation.
We therefore do in the name, and by the authority of the good people of the United Kingdom, solemnly publish and declare that this kingdom is once again, and of right ought to be, a free and independent state; that it is absolved from all allegiance to the bureaucrats of Brussels, and that all political connection between it and the superstate of Europe is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent state it has full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
