Paging Bernie Sanders
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘At the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should remain in the Common Market, the Yes campaign could rely on the fact that the government and business were in favor, knowing the public would follow suit. Four decades later, the same trick will not work. Britons are far more skeptical of authority, critical of business and hostile to Europe.’
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That’s how Japan’s London-based business newspaper, the Financial Times, concludes its editorial this morning in respect of the pending vote on a British exit from the European Union. The FT’s editorial is centered on the discovery that Goldman Sachs has been funneling huge subsidies into the campaign for a “no” vote on Brexit. Not only that, but the JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America are contemplating making their own contributions.
Message for Senator Sanders . . . paging Mr. Sanders. Call your (London) office. It strikes us — admittedly, we’ve been following the Brexit story — that this is quite an ironical situation. The proponents of Brexit worry about, among other things, the danger from the European Union of creeping socialism. Yet the big banks who are, supposedly, the bêtes noirs of the surging socialist from Vermont, are all in favor of the European Union.
So which side is Mr. Sanders on? Is he with big banks he likes to criticize? Or is he with the populist movement that wants a restoration of true sovereignty in Britain? Excuse our bemused tone. Our interest in those questions is genuine. We’ve worn our fingers to the stubs cranking out editorials trying to get the Republican candidates to awaken to this issue. President Obama has already sided with Goldman Sachs and the big banks who want a “no” on Brexit. What about Mr. Sanders?
It may be that the socialistic senator is too parochial for this issue. Or that it just confounds the Left. We’re waiting for a candidate who will see that America’s own interest lies with a sovereign Britain and even a strengthening of the special relationship between it and America. And a new entente between Britain and other countries that love the combination of freedom and democracy of which Britain has been a fountainhead. Mr. Sanders won’t get many chances at this issue as sweet as the one being handed up by Goldman Sachs.
