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Steve Baker, a Conservative Member of Parliament, was announced today as junior Brexit minister under fellow libertarian David Davis. Baker, who has referenced Austrian scholars such as Ludwig von Mises, Jesús Huerta de Soto and F.A. Hayek in the House of Commons, has long been a Eurosceptic and seen as a “hardliner” in future negotiations with the EU. Along with his opposition to the EU, Baker has been a vocal opponent of the Bank of England’s policy of quantitive easing, and the IMF.

In his own words:

I am afraid that the contemporary mainstream of economics is missing some vital information... As I explained, as Mises set out, as Hayek followed in his steps and as others have predicted, we risk a final and total catastrophe for our currency system. To conclude, we are in danger of simply kicking a can down. ... We are looking at further credit expansion, further monetisation of debts and further socialisation of risk. Throughout the western world, we are in danger of appearing as King Canute, trying to use politics to hold back the realities of social co-operation, which we usually describe as economics. The IMF is an institutional legacy from a monetary system that failed 40 years ago, and the successor to which is even now failing as well.

Baker’s new role is welcom news out of the UK following last week’s surprising election result that saw the Labour Party, under the leadership of Marx admirer Jeremy Corbyn, make historic gains.

The European Union also reemphasized that its underlying purpose is about control, rather than fair trade, beginning legal action against Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic over their refugee policies. If the primary focus of the European Union was continental peace and a free common market, trying to strong arm national governments over immigration policies would seem counterproductive. Of course, as Jeff Deist and others have noted, the EU has never been about the values of classical liberalism, but instead about centralizing political policy at the expense of national sovereignty.

Hopefully Steve Baker will prove to be a great asset for the UK in its divorce from Jean-Claude Juncker and the bureaucracy in Brussels, and assist his country toward a freer future.

Read more on Brexit:

The European Union Is Anti-European by Louis Rouanet

​The EU Is About Control, Not Free Trade by Sascha Klocke

​Why Europe Must Decentralize by Ryan McMaken

​Brexit: Individualism > Nationalism > Globalism by Jeff Deist

The European Miracle by Ralph Raico

​Why Brexit Is Better for Britain by Thorsten Polleit

Godfrey Bloom on Brexit