Kory Swanson joins Matthew Elliott, CEO of the Vote Leave group in the Brexit campaign, to discuss at National Review Online the continuing importance of British-American trade.
Elliott will expand on these themes during a speech Monday to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society.
Some people outside the U.K. still interpret the Brexit result as a vote for Britain to turn inward and pull up the drawbridge to the world. There was always a danger that Britain would venture down the path of a “closed Brexit,” but it is not the path May has pursued, nor was it the vision put forward by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson during the referendum campaign.
North Carolina, where one of us is based, already has seen the signs of a U.K. continuing to look outward. Last July, little more than one month after the Brexit referendum, the U.K.’s international trade secretary announced plans to open a new trade office in Raleigh, along with others in Minneapolis and San Diego. (British-based firms such as BAE Systems, Compass Group, GSK, and Dunlop Aircraft Tyres already support more than 27,000 jobs in North Carolina.)
The only way for Brexit to succeed is for the U.K. to engage fully with the entire world. It must remain the closest possible friend and partner to countries in the European Union, but also look farther afield, too, not least to the United States.
The general election will greatly increase the chance of this kind of “open Brexit,” with the U.K. stepping forward to take a leading role in global trade and foreign affairs. Brexit can put the U.K.–U.S. axis at the heart of global affairs once again, on the basis of our shared values and ever-deepening economic cooperation.
