The Atlantic: The Window for Brexit May Already Have Closed

Over that same period, however, Britain’s Conservative Party has become more and more committed to Brexit. Sixty-three percent of Conservative Party supporters would rather see Scotland secede from the United Kingdom than abandon the Brexit project. Sixty-one percent of Conservatives would accept significant damage to the British economy to achieve Brexit. Fifty-nine percent would let Northern Ireland go. Fifty-four percent would rather see the Conservative Party itself destroyed than yield on Brexit. [...]

This time, however, the historic British resolution for political crises is unavailable. New rules lock the Johnson government into office until 2022 unless two-thirds of Parliament approve an earlier election. Even if there were an election, Johnson might not lose, because the main opposition party—Labour—has chosen as its leader an extreme leftist who is widely regarded as pathetically inadequate. Jeremy Corbyn’s own parliamentary party has repeatedly tried to get rid of him, accusing him of anti-Semitism, misogyny, and general cluelessness. By a margin of 13 percentage points, British people would prefer even the most painful possible Brexit to a Corbyn-led government.[...]

Johnson could try to lead Britain out of the EU despite the extension. Some of his ministers say they are determined to drive forward regardless of public opinion. But Parliament has voted to require affirmative approval by Parliament of a British exit. Johnson would have to defy that vote and arguably break the law to achieve Brexit. The British courts have slapped him down once, when he tried to prorogue Parliament despite lacking a working majority in the House of Commons. If he bolts for Brexit despite the law, the courts will surely slap him down again. While Johnson is a risk-taking politician, he is no Donald Trump: He is not ultimately a lawbreaker. [...]

What is driving the change in the U.K. is generational replacement. Until very recently, Britain was marked by a uniquely weak attachment to a “European” identity. On the eve of the Brexit vote, only 15 percent of British people thought of themselves as “European,” by far the lowest level of identification for a big EU state. The most striking and surprising effect of the Brexit debate in the U.K. has been to incubate for the first time a European political identity among the young. You see EU-flag pins on backpacks on the subway, EU flags in windows around the University of London. Since June 2016, 2.5 million young people have entered the British electorate, and about 1.4 million older people have died out of it.

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The Week: The coming end of Christian America

America is still a "Christian nation," if the term simply means a majority of the population will claim the label when a pollster calls. But, as a new Pew Research report unsparingly explains, the decline of Christianity in the United States "continues at a rapid pace." A bare 65 percent of Americans now say they're Christians, down from 78 percent as recently as 2007. The deconverted are mostly moving away from religion altogether, and the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated — the "nones" — have swelled from 16 to 26 percent over the same period. If this rate of change continues, the U.S. will be majority non-Christian by about 2035, with the nones representing well over one third of the population. [...]

In what remains of the American church, reactions to this decline will vary. Some will see it as a positive apocalypse, which is to say a revealing of what was always true. America was never really a Christian nation. Our government and society have long made choices and embraced values that are difficult, if not impossible, to square with Christianity, so an end of any association between the two is welcome. Likewise, the proportion of Americans who actually practiced Christian faith in any meaningful, life-altering sense was always substantially lower than the proportion who would identify as Christian in a poll. What we're seeing is less mass deconversion than a belated honesty which may be an opportunity for new faithfulness, repentance, or even revival. [...]

Yet as contradictory as it may seem, I'll also suggest left-wing nones may come to find they miss the religious right when grappling with its successor. The New York Times' Ross Douthat has argued the post-religious right of which President Trump has given us a glimpse will be an ugly beast indeed. Polling shows the "churchgoers who ultimately voted for Trump over Clinton still tend to hold different views than his more secular supporters," he wrote last year, including being "less authoritarian and tribal on race and identity. ...The trend was consistent: The more often a Trump voter attended church, the less white-identitarian they appeared, the more they expressed favorable views of racial minorities, and the less they agreed with populist arguments on trade and immigration." In other words, on the right, the decline of Christianity looks to mean the rise of racism, as the communal life of active faith is replaced by darker impulses.

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UnHerd: Will the Evangelicals dump Trump?

This was Donald Trump’s third appearance at the convention in the last four years, a necessity when 81% of white Evangelicals voted for him in 2016. After sticking with Trump through sexual assault accusations and scores of half-truths and outright lies, it seemed as though nothing could shake their faith in the man; yet an accumulation of factors may be eroding Evangelicals’ enthusiasm for the President, and perhaps even undermining their support altogether. [...]

Even religiously conservative politicians are starting to break ranks. Retiring Illinois Rep. John Shimkus, who gained notoriety for using the Bible to dismiss climate change, officially withdrew his support for the President over the “despicable” decision regarding Syria. And prominent conservative Christian media personality Erick Erickson tweeted at Nancy Pelosi to speed up the impeachment process so that “perhaps we’ll still have time to save some of the Kurds”. [...]

This betrayal is especially hard to swallow because Christian persecution in the Middle East has been a prominent issue for American conservative Christians, and many have therefore been keeping track of how the Kurds became the major defenders of Christian minority populations in Iraq and Syria. American Evangelicals fear these Middle Eastern Christians may now be endangered by a policy that decimates and alienates the Kurds and allows for the resurgence of ISIS. [...]

Yet even with Trump’s apparent success in reshaping the courts, Evangelicals may be in for a disappointment. New Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have pushed the Court somewhat to the Right, but they haven’t been the firebrand conservatives that many conservatives were looking for. The new justices may prove unwilling to halt the trend of advances made to LGBT rights, and sexual identity may be ruled a federally protected class.

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The Economist: How Brexit is changing the EU

Brexit once seemed to pose an existential threat to the European Union. But Britain's withdrawal process has had some surprising results—especially when it comes to how other member states view the EU.

UnHerd: Is Prince Harry the new Edward VIII?

Harry has broken the convention that royalty does not say how it feels. He has shattered the bargain that, in return for obsessive attention – I will not call it privilege, because it isn’t – you submit to be feasted on, in every aspect of your life. The only possible way to survive is to say nothing, do nothing, be nothing – to be the vessel – but Harry cannot do this. Catherine Middleton, born into the middle class, can; it is as if, as an outsider who watched monarchy, she knew the market. [...]

I found this touching, because it was never going to be fair. Are you fair to that which you consume? The media does not hate Meghan, nor does it love her – it is simply indifferent. They are material to be consumed, which is why a tabloid will have pieces both for and against them within pages of each other. This piece, of course, is part of the consumption.

I would liberate Britain from this dirty bargain, which infantilises the public, succours the class system, fills newspapers with junk and ruins the object of its obsession. I think Harry is right to sue, but it will not serve him. You cannot make monarchy rational, or safe for its victims; you cannot amend it, or make it kind.

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The Guardian: Election results give hope to opposition in Poland and Hungary

Cas Mudde, a political scientist and leading populism expert at the University of Georgia, said: “In both Hungary and Poland the opposition seemed to understand the fundamental challenge to liberal democracy they were facing. Strategic collaboration is crucial, particularly when the government party is gaming the system by, for example, controlling the media.” [...]

In Hungary, meanwhile, the hardline prime minister, Viktor Orbán, suffered his greatest political setback in a decade when a pro-European, centre-left challenger ousted the Fidesz-backed incumbent as mayor of Budapest by 51% to 44%. [...]

The tactic of fielding joint candidates could potentially offer a route to mounting a serious challenge to the strongman prime minister at the next general elections in 2022, although it could prove more difficult to replicate on a national level. [...]

But the performance of Poland’s Left alliance in returning to parliament also suggested that “with good organisation and positive messaging, opposition parties can do well” even in environments where they are under pressure, he added.

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The Guardian: 'A threat to democracy': William Barr's speech on religious freedom alarms liberal Catholics

Prominent liberal Catholics have warned the US attorney general’s devout Catholic faith poses a threat to the separation of church and state, after William Barr delivered a fiery speech on religious freedom in which he warned that “militant secularists” were behind a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order”. [...]

C Colt Anderson, a Roman Catholic theologian and professor of religion at Jesuit-run Fordham University, said in an interview that he was unaware until this week that Barr was a fellow Catholic. Now, after reading the speech, Anderson believes the attorney general, in revealing his devotion to an especially conservative branch of Catholicism, is a “threat to American democracy”. [...]

Barr did not address the fact that many of the policies of the Trump administration are strongly opposed by the Vatican. Pope Francis has repeatedly pleaded for the United States to open its doors to more refugees, even as Barr has defended policies that turn away or imprison immigrants seeking refugee status at the US-Mexico border, even separating parents from their children. [...]

Barr’s speech at Notre Dame was a reminder of a fact often overlooked in analysis of Trump’s political base – that while the president enjoys the support of many high-profile right-wing Christian evangelical leaders, he has also surrounded himself with conservative Roman Catholics associated with organizations that some others in the faith consider extreme.

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euronews: Swiss election: Greens gain while far-right loses ground

As climate change and the country's relationship with the European Union were the main focuses of the political campaign, the Greens rode on voters' climate concerns in the parliamentary election. [...]

According to final results, the Greens (left) are now the fourth party in the National Council (lower house) ahead of the Christian Democratic Party, and trailing the right-wing Liberal-Radical Party by just one seat. [...]

Cabinet seats have been divvied up among the SVP, SP, FDP and CVP in nearly the same way since 1959. The three biggest parties get two seats and the fourth-biggest gets one under the informal "magic formula" system. [...]

Analysts caution against expecting too radical a shift after a campaign that was light on typical hot-button issues such as migration and Swiss ties with the European Union that have given the anti-EU SVP a boost in the past.

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The Guardian: King's sacking of consort highlights power of Thai monarchy

While Sineenat was the first officially named consort to a Thai king since the 1920s, she was not the first woman in Vajiralongkorn’s life to lose her position. In 2014 he stripped Srirasmi Akrapongpreecha, his third wife, of most of her titles and had members of her family arrested. His second wife, Sujarinee Vivacharawongse, fled to the US after Vajiralongkorn denounced her in 1996 and disowned their four sons. [...]

Sineenat’s appointment on 28 July this year made Vajiralongkorn the first Thai monarch since King Rama VI, who ruled from 1910 to 1925, to publicly acknowledge multiple female companions. Her consort ceremony was followed by the palace releasing images of her piloting a military plane and shooting a gun. Such images previously had been reserved for the king’s close relatives, and they resembled the military-style photos of Queen Suthida released for her birthday. [...]

Vajiralongkorn’s power shows no sign of abating and he has proved to be an assertive constitutional monarch. His face peers from shrines and billboard advertisements in Bangkok, the latter placed by companies declaring loyalty. A schmaltzy video montage of the king growing up, featuring images of members of the public crawling at his feet, plays in cinemas before film screenings. Audience members are compelled to stand for it.

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