’Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House — of Commons — Brexiteers cannot help but stir at the prospect that Britain’s independence from the European Union is, at last, a likelihood. So on the eve of the Queen’s Speech setting out the Government’s agenda for the new year, who wants to play Grinch and ruin the festive atmosphere? Certainly not I.

Rumors circulate out of 10 Downing Street that the incoming ministry will reintroduce a sharper Withdrawal Agreement within days, shorn of “soft” Brexit inducements included to entice Remainer Tory MPs last October. As well as legislation severing any lingering strands of Brussels’ entanglements, come December 2020. Britain will exit with a trade deal freed from the EU’s euphemistic “level playing field” of regulatory alignment, or make a “clean break.”

All this lies in the future. Americans, particularly supporters of President Trump, are transfixed by Boris Johnson’s ability to remain on top of the greasy pole of politics — despite the divisions allied against him at the general election. Even Vice President Joe Biden has got in on the action with the epiphany that Mr. Johnson’s trouncing of Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn bodes ill for merchants of socialism and anti-Semitism.

Up to a point, I say (quoting the demurral made famous by Evelyn Waugh in “Scoop”). Britons no doubt desire to “get Brexit done” and chart their own social, economic, and political course — a position Mr. Biden vigorously opposed. Yet Mr. Johnson’s Conservative manifesto also proffered generous outlays for infrastructure, health services, and welfare outreach, effectively neutralizing Labor’s surfeit of state spending and scheme to nationalize, once again, British industry.

F.H. Buckley calls this the “sweet spot” of politics: “tacking right on social issues [e.g., Brexit] while going middle of the road or left of center on economics.” By adopting this “Red Tory” approach to government policy, my friend Professor Buckley sees continuing electoral success for America’s and Britain’s center-right parties, despite the fact that “libertarian ideologues insist this isn’t conservatism.”

Let’s call this advocacy of “wet” Toryism “pre-Brexit” conservatism. Is, though, Brexit no more than independence from the rising statism of the European Union? Isn’t the promise of Brexit more individual freedom across the board? Or, to “invert” Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech, have Britons’ “successfully rolled back the frontiers of Brussels, only to see them re-imposed at Westminster”?

No, responds one branch of the Brexit brigade. Nor are they any less “One Nation” Tories than those who rally round Boris Johnson and the incoming government. The phrase “One Nation Conservatism” comes from Benjamin Disraeli himself, and inspired by his novel “Sybil,” with its characterization of “two nations” — the rich and the poor — living side-by-side within the British state, “between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy.”

Conservative politicians use “One Nation” as an occasion for government intervention and, through welfare economics, to negate attacks from the left. As Professor Buckley illustrates, both Prime Minister Johnson and President Trump have used the public purse “to dish” their political opponents.

Nor is this wholly cynical. A great object of the Tory party, Disraeli asserted, was “the elevation of the condition of the people.” Neither was he ignorant of the economic realities of Victorian Britain, threading its way between paternalism and laissez-faire. “The great problem is to be able to achieve such results without violating those principles of economic truth upon which the prosperity of all States depends,” Dizzy confessed.

William Pitt the Younger, for instance, prided himself on mastering Adam Smith’s agenda against protection and in favour of capital accumulation. Disraeli’s nemesis, W.E. Gladstone, was unrivalled in his retrenchment schemes. Today it is axiomatic that low taxes, limited government, and supply-side policies are intrinsic to incentive and economic growth.

As Britain transitions into its “post-Brexit” future as an independent nation, a transformational leader — and doesn’t Boris want to cast himself in that historic role? — will prove essential if we are to make Disraeli’s two nations into one United Kingdom prospering in “sunlit meadows” of liberty. The question of the hour thus becomes, “Where stand Boris Johnson and the Conservative party?”