How conservatives can use their Brexit-mentum to reverse the course of history

William F. Buckley famously wrote in National Review's founding manifesto that "a conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop."

I've never been overly fond of this quote, despite it being one of the most famous quips in modern political history. It concedes too much to the progressive worldview that history has a direction, and that everything can fit into a narrative of "Progress" and "Regress." But I've reconsidered since the Brexit result shook the political and economic worlds late last week. As Megan McArdle pointed out, many people without a real personal connection to Britain felt personal affront and loss at the result, because they were part of the global cosmopolitan professional class. Brexit is a middle finger from the English to the global cosmopolitan order promoted by cosmopolitan elites the world over, which is why it makes a journalist in New York or a wonk in D.C. feel genuine sorrow.

The EU represents Progress with a capital P. The EU means the lowering of national borders, the dissolution of national identities into an ever-expanding formless blob, one whose only discernible values are precisely those of the cosmopolitan elite: free trade, the transcending of roots (unless your roots are those of a rootless cosmopolitan, of course!), and a milquetoast, syrupy, vague utilitarianism.

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In this sense, Brexit was indeed a case of Progress versus Conservatism. Which is why I'm so exhilarated by it. It's one of those times when conservatives stood athwart history, yelling "Stop!" and... history did.

There are lessons here for conservatives.

Brexit is a textbook case of something that too rarely happens for conservatives: a small, idiosyncratic movement appears, grows, wins the battle of ideas, and then goes on to win the political war. As many Remainers pointed out, Margaret Thatcher enthusiastically campaigned for Britain's membership in the EU the last time it was up for a vote. Euroskeptics used to be a minority even within Britain's Conservative Party, which supported John Major, and put Kenneth Clarke in nearly every important cabinet position. Clarke would go on to lose each time he ran for leader of the Conservative Party, largely over Europe. And while the British Tories were split over Remaining or Leaving, no one of the younger generation is an enthusiastic Europhile like Clarke.

The Euroskeptics won the battle of ideas within the Conservative Party, but also outside it in the popular opinion, in large part through populist movements like UKIP. And then they won the political battle. There was a referendum. And against all expectations, conservatives won.

So what lessons should conservatives draw for the future? First, have a clear message that you can put a positive spin on — and effectively cast your opponents in a negative light. The Leave campaign was highly effective in casting itself as the hopeful and optimistic vision of the future, while branding the Remain camp as "Project Fear." The Leavers kept pointing out that the Remainers' warnings boiled down to not having faith in Britain, arguing that Remain didn't believe Britain had it in herself to be a positive standalone country. Leave appealed to the positivity of pride of nation. "We can go it alone — and thrive," Leave promised. Meanwhile, the Remainers were the dour ones hanging onto an ill-conceived post-World War II dream of a United States of Europe.

Leave also did impressive jiu-jitsu with its opponents' inevitable "you bigot!"-based arguments. In one of his debates on ITV, Leave leader Nigel Farage was taken to task by a woman for relying on bigotry. He responded by saying that one reason why he wanted to leave the EU was so the U.K. could take in more skilled doctors and engineers from former British colonies like India and Kenya, who speak the language and have an affinity for Britain, rather than unskilled Eastern Europeans that the U.K. has no choice in admitting or not.

And finally... Wait for the other side to overreach. If a million migrants hadn't been let into Europe, or Germany hadn't thrown its weight around to impose austerity on tens of millions of Europeans, or the ill-conceived euro hadn't been launched to begin with, there would have been no Brexit.

But this is the point. Progressives always overreach. European elites knew none of these moves would be popular. But they believed they had the Wind of History at their back. Sure, people would stand athwart history, yelling Stop. But you can't stop history, progressives assured themselves.

I guess you can, after all.