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God the Father with His Right Hand Raised in Blessing, with a triangular halo representing the Trinity, Girolamo dai Libri, c. 1555 Public Domain

Steven Andrew is pastor of the USA Christian Church in San Jose (CA) who warns, Obeying God protects the USA from diseases, such as the coronavirus. He goes on, Bible thumping, Our safety is at stake since national disobedience of Gods laws brings danger and diseases, such as coronavirus, but obeying God brings covenant protection. God protects the USA from danger as the country repents of LGBT, false gods, abortion and other sins.

Andrew is not alone in decrying the coronavirus as gods curse. Rick Wiles, a Florida minister and founder of the media outlet TruNews,said the virus is a plague sent by god. My spirit bears witness that this is a genuine plague that is coming upon the earth, and God is about to purge a lot of sin off this planet, he ranted. He stressed that such a plague is part of the end times, a period of tribulations that precedes the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Both Andrew and Wiles share a belief that the coronavirus plague is due to widespread immorality, especially involving abortion, homosexuality and gender nonconformity.

Andrew declared March to be Repent of LGBT Sin Month. He claims, Gods love shows it is urgent to repent, because the Bible teaches homosexuals lose their souls and God destroys LGBT societies. He calls himself the leader of the American Christian Denomination, an association made up of Christians of all denominations who believe like our founding fathers. Hes gone so far as to declare 2020 as Jesus Is King Year a year of liberty and blessings. His press release notes that he has monthly revival events. These outreaches cost $350,000 for the year. Those wanting to help share the Gospel can donate at USA Christian Church.

Wiles rants, Look at the spiritual rebellion that is in this country, the hatred of God, the hatred of the Bible, the hatred of righteousness. He goes on, Just vile, disgusting people in this country now, transgendering little children, perverting them. Look at the rapes and the sexual immorality and the filth on our TVs and our movies.

For postmodern secularists, the opinions of Andrew and Wiles may seem absurd if not ridiculous, easily dismissed. Their moralistic judgements seem more appropriate to the 19th if not 17th centuries then to 21st century America. Sadly, their religious fundamentalist beliefs appear to be shared by millions of Americans who helped elect Donald Trump. Most worrisome, they embody a moralistic authoritarianism that has congealed into a powerful political movement threatening the nations very democratic being.

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The rise of the religious right should be cause for alarm among all who care about the future of democracy in America, warns Katherine Stewart in her new book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-power-worshippers-9781635573459/

Stewarts invaluable study is a detailed investigation into how, over the last quarter century, the culture wars morphed into a political campaign. The book documents how as this movement failed to gain popular support for its moralistic agenda, it turned to politics to impose its Christian fundamentalist values on American society.

When Trump and other top administration officials took office, they pledged to fulfill the 2016 Republican Partys platform that asserted:

Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Courts ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law.

Trumps election occurred as Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and, once in office, he appointed two conservatives to the Supreme CourtNeil Gorsuchand BrettKavanaughconsolidating the religious rights control of the nations legal authority. Compounding this situation, numerous members of Trumps inner circle are drawn from the religious right, including Vice Pres. Mike Pence; William Barr, Attorney General; Jay Sekulow, the presidents counsel; and Education Sec. Betsy DeVos.

The hardcore Christian nationalist movement played a key role in Trumps 2016 victory and will likely do so again in 2020. The Christian nationalist movement, Stewart notes, is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. And then she warns, It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals.

Stewart details how the Christian right effectively employs anetwork of think tanks, advocacy groups, pastoral organizations and the fortunes of the very, very rich to achieve its power. She is a journalist who anchors each chapter in a compelling story of a distinct facet of the Christian nationalist movement. In one chapter she visits Unionville (NC) to attend a seminar sponsored by Watchmen on the Wall considering how to end the Johnson Amendment restrictions on religious organizations endorsing political parties or candidates.

Stewart introduces the cabal of key leaders of the movement, including: Ralph Drollinger (who offers weekly Bible study groups for White House of officials); Paul Weyrich (who led the antiabortion movement); Jim Domen (an ex-gay anti-gay activist who leads Church United, a voter-outreach group); David Barton (of Project Blitz that seeks to end separation of church and state); and R. J. Rushdoony (who she calls an unacknowledged leader of the movement). She also explores the role of the religious right in the rise of the homeschooling movement and how calls for free speech led to the erosion of the traditional wall separating church and state.

As Stewart warns, Christian nationalism is a movement that aims to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity . . . that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders.

***

The Puritans landed in New England four centuries ago, in 1620. During the first quarter-century of settlement, occasional accusations of witchcraft were raised, but no one was executed. However, during the following half-century, 16471693, over 200 people were accused of witchcraft and about 30 were executed. Most of these alleged witches were women who came from more than 30 communities in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including Easthampton, Long Island, now part of New York. Following the notorious Salem trials of 16921693, convictions and executions for witchcraft essentially ended

Few remember just how troubled the lives of the early Puritans was. Their settlement was inspired by the desire to civilize the New World, to wrest from the devil both the natural world and the aboriginal people, and thus create New Jerusalem. Yet, they found themselves confronted at every turn by formidable threats, in constant fear of natures uncertainties and in dread of innumerable battles with hostile Native tribes. The New World was a troubled environment in which to create heaven on earth.

Making matters worse, their attempt to establish New Jerusalem was hampered most by the very fragile humans who were expected to accomplish this religiously inspired mission. Humans were imperfect creatures, scarred for all eternity by original sin yet, given the predetermination that directed all of gods actions, capable of being saved and achieving a state of grace. These troubled beings were subject to a nearly inexhaustible list of sins that fell into two broad categories, sins of character and sins of the flesh.

Among the former were pride, anger, envy, malice, lying, discontent, dissatisfaction and self-assertion. Among the latter were seduction, lust, bestiality, masturbation, fornication, adultery, incest, polygamy, sodomy and temptations like carnality, drunkenness and licentiousness. Almost anything could be a sin.

The Puritans fought mightily against the overpowering threats that were as much external as internal, especially sexual threats. They fashioned, in the words of historian Richard Godbeer, a culture of sexual surveillance and regulation to strictly oversee and control interpersonal relations. First and foremost, this surveillance was intended to prevent premarital sex and pregnancy or what was known as bridal pregnancy. It was not uncommon for neighbors to carefully observe interpersonal encounters taking place in homes or in fields, on roadways or in the woods.

https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/sexual-revolution-early-america

For Puritans, no place was considered private, beyond the bounds of community monitoring. This control was only intensified given the close physical proximity under which Puritan settlements existed. The personal information garnered through surveillance provided the basis for many of the reported scandals involving alleged witchcraft.

Puritans distinguished between a sinner, even one convicted of a sexual offense, and a witch. According to historian Elizabeth Reis, a witch [was] the most egregious of sinners. She insists: Those who admitted signing [the devils pact] crossed the forbidden line between sinner and witch. This act, signing the devils book with ones own blood, marked forsaking God and aligning with Satan. Equally critical, it was a voluntary act, a personal decision, motivated neither by seduction nor temptation.

https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/82/1/15/736368?redirectedFrom=PDF

The sinner and the witch could engage in the same sexual act, but the meaning for each was fundamentally different. For the sinner, sin was a survivable offense and offered a chance for redemption. This was especially true for male as opposed to female sinners. For the witch, however, there was only hanging and eternal damnation. In addition to fornication, women accused of witchcraft could also be charged with other sex offenses, including adultery, illegitimacy and, the worst, sex with the devil.

As judgment for a sinners bad conduct or warning to one so tempted, the Puritans drew upon a wide assortment of punishments to enforce social control. They ranged from excommunication, disenfranchisement and banishment, to public shaming and whippings, to selling a convicted persons children into bondage, to branding, cutting off body parts (e.g., an ear) and body mutilation (e.g., disfiguring the nose), and, when all else failed, to hanging and even being pressed under rocks until death. Unfortunately, these threats and punishments did not work.

***

Its now 2020 and old-world Puritanism survives as postmodern Christian nationalism. It is, as Stewart argues, a complex phenomenon. On one level, it is a populist, nonviolent movement, a militant minority. She estimates that it consists of 26 percent of the voting age population who supported electoral candidates in 2016. That year, the voting age population (VAP) was 250 million people, so it would seem that 65 million Americans might be part of the Christian nationalist movement.

U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout

However, given the sizable population that Stewart suggests as composing the Christian nationalist movement, it also operates on still other levels. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified within its a host of segments the broad religious right Christian Identity groups, neo-Confederate groups, Ku Klux Klan groups, racist skinheads and other sharing white supremacist beliefs. In a recent report, The Year in Hate and Extremism, 2019, it found that the number of white nationalist groups was up slightly to 155 from 148 in 2018. It notes that since 2017, there has been a 55 percent increase in the number of these groups, some of which are calling for bloodshed and a race war.Most notably, it found, some are advocating violence and encouraging their foot soldiers to prepare for (and precipitate) a race war.

https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/yih_2020_final.pdf

The SPLC notes that the movements followers are breaking into two major strategic camps, between mainstreamers and accelerationists. The mainstreamers are often referred to as or the dissident right faction who are attempting, with a degree of success, to bend the mainstream political right toward white nationalist ideas. The accelerationists wholeheartedly embrace violence as a political tool and, as the SPLC warns, much of the movements energy lies in the growing accelerationist wing, which, for the most part, is organized in informal online communities rather than formal groups.

One factor that might have contributed to the increased militancy of some aspects of the religious right is the significant decline among those who self-identity as Christians. Pew Research finds that in the decade between 2009 and 2019, there was a 12 percent decline among such people, from 77 percent down to 65 percent. Perhaps more revealing, those who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular now stands at 26 percent, up from 17 percent in 2009.

In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

The worldwide spread and unraveling global crisis caused by coronavirus pandemic seems like a perfect historical moment for religious fundamentalist and other racial identity nationalists to invoke the Puritan past to persecute alleged offenders, nonbelievers. For some religious ranters, when moral suasion fails, its time to invoke the power of the state to impose order.

As Christian nationalists secure ever-greater influence, if not control, of the American political system at the federal and state levels they will exploit of the power of state authority to impose their values as law and enforcement. For these religious reactionaries, the 2020 election is not about Trump but about power their power to control America and increasing aspects of the lives of all of us.

***

David Rosen can be reached atdrosennyc@verizon.net checkout http://www.DavidRosenWrites.com.

More:
God's Vengeance: the Christian Right and the Coronavirus - CounterPunch

The age in which Sarkar worked was dominated by nationalism, given Indias struggle against the British Raj. But these words also hold substance in our time of hyper-nationalism, as Indians turn against other Indians with history (or imitations of it) as their preferred weapon. Reading T.C.A. Raghavans History Men, one is, in fact, startled that while the specifics might have changed, the broad dynamics remain the same in many ways. Then, as today, history provided raw material for multiple visions of the past, interpreted in different ways to cement conflicting ideas of the Indian nation. Debates on historiography, method and even historians own biases afflicted the writing of history in Sarkars time, and scholars found themselves in the cross hairs of chauvinism, regional and national sentiment, language and culture wars, and even plain old-fashioned clashes of ego, then as today.

Raghavans book is a splendid examination of these issues through the constructive and warm relationship Sarkar enjoyed with two other historians, G.S. Sardesai and Raghubir Sinh. The three men held each other in high regard, which is not to say that they agreed with each other on everything. Sarkar often found Sardesai too sympathetic to Maratha pride in his approach to Maratha history, for example, while Sardesai felt Sarkar did not give enough value to understanding different sides of the same story, and the purpose these served for each partys identity. Sinh, the youngest of the three, and the most unusual, given his royal heritage, was deferential to his seniors, but did not hesitate in his work to nuance arguments and challenge some of their conclusions and deeply held beliefs. It was, in fact, their own internal debates and mutual criticism that nourished the partnership for decades.

The relationship began, as Raghavan relates, when Sarkar approached Sardesai in 1904 with a proposition: He was an expert on Persian documents and could provide inputs to Sardesai, if the latter helped him with Marathi sources pertaining to the Mughal period. It was the launch of a fascinating coalition, lasting till death, but fraught also with the troubles such an alliance caused in other quarters. Sarkarwho in many ways dominates the book as the grandest of the threewas a celebrity of sorts, publishing as he did in the English language universe. His work on Aurangzeb, particularly his attacks on the emperors orthodoxy, marked him as a communal" historian for secular nationalists, even as his less than reverential take on Shivaji (who appears in his books as simply Shiva") upset proud Hindu elements with opposite political leanings, in another part of the country.

Naturally, Sardesai, who emerged in the 1920s after a long career at the court of the maharaja of Baroda, received flak from fellow Maharashtrian historians (specifically, the Poona School) for his closeness to Sarkar. That Sarkar used his influence with the British (whose police at one point had tried to charge him with sedition) to help Sardesai gain access to coveted but sealed archives further upset doyens of the Poona School who were denied this and refused even to acknowledge Sardesai as a proper historian. Language politics also played a role: Sardesai wrote in Marathi for the most part, but Sarkars support highlighted Sardesais work outside Maharashtra, to the angst of his rivals. Sarkar, of course, dismissed their criticism, putting it down to envy and labelling the Poona School a clique" unable to rise above its own pettiness.

Raghavanhaving mined a rich archive of correspondence between these men as well as Sinhs library in Sitamau, Madhya Pradeshdoes an excellent job in the book, in clear language and at a pace that never slackens, in explaining how much networks mattered, along with determination and the traditional skill sets of a historian. Sinhs princely connections, for instance, were of great value in gaining access to royal archives, even if these came with their own problems. For instance, Sarkar would write a history of Jaipur for that princely state, only to see the manuscript gather dust. The issue, evidently, was that the court was not keen to have Jaipurs time under Maratha domination advertised, and it was only in the 1980s that Sarkars book was posthumously published, thanks to Sinhs efforts. Sardesai too tried to help Sarkars book see the light of day: A mother-in-law of the Jaipur ruler was Sardesais student, and he made an attempt to use this connection to persuade the maharaja to publish the manuscript.

Among the strengths of this charming book is the biographical element it contains. Sinhs love for history saw him renounce claims to his princely seat, while the quest for the tale of his own ancestors led him to produce a superbly original revisionist account of Malwas history. Sarkars life witnessed tragedy, with two daughters widowed, a son murdered, and a grandson killed in an accident. Sardesai had to face the ire not only of the Poona School but also of his former employer, the Baroda maharaja, who, upset with him for retiring from service, slashed his hard-earned pension. We also get a glimpse, on a happier note, of Sardesais marriage in an entertaining diary entry by his wife. My husband," wrote a scandalized Mrs Sardesai once, thinks I should wear my sari according to the new fashion without one end tucked up behind my back." The issue led to a quarrel between the author of the 3,800-page Marathi Riyasat and his sartorially conservative spouse.

What shines ultimately in the bookand this is Raghavans underlying focusis the sheer love for history that united all three men. They worked in a time of slow communications, when India was still forming itself into a single, modern whole. Their work involved plodding through fields, hunting for forgotten monuments, persuading hesitant families to publish their records, fighting court cases and legal threats, not to speak of negotiating a bureaucracy that had its own interests in manufacturing obstacles. Their work was criticized then, and their methods are in many ways outdated now, but these history men" made phenomenal contributions and authored works of striking quality. And while students of history will entirely relate to Sarkars use of the term mouth-watering" in the context of finding new records, Raghavans tribute to the man and his peers is equally delightful, revealing also to the lay reader what investigating the past entails, and the dynamics that shape any mission to understand Indias historya story not just of chronicles but also of the chroniclers.

Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne (2015)and Rebel Sultans (2018).

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Link:
The three men who wrote modern Indias history - Livemint

It is less well known that the Spanish flu had already created a sense in the interwar period that proper disease surveillance and free effective treatments were desperately needed. Eugenicists had claimed that the irresponsible poor and immigrants were to blame for succumbing to disease, but it became clear that unhealthy environments and underdeveloped states were the problem.

In Sweden, the pandemic revealed the squalor in which the poor lived. Sick children were found on the floor in homes without beds. The welfare state called folkhemmet, or peoples home was to end such conditions once and for all; it not so much leveled citizens (Swedish capitalists lived very comfortably in the folkhemmet) as enabled a people to protect themselves from collective risks.

Of course, not all crises bring people together. Some divide us, with climate change an obvious example. But the current experience of shared vulnerability is so visceral that political entrepreneurs who usually profit from polarization might have a hard time convincing citizens that this is all hoax, or partisan warfare.

True, competence can always be recoded as just one side in the culture wars, and experts are suspected of being condescending liberal elites; anti-vaxxers and populists have managed to reduce citizens trust in government health advice to dangerously low levels in Italy and the United States.

But things change when your or your grandparents life really does depend directly on the experts, and when you realize that no gated community can keep a virus out. As Jonathan D. Quick, former chair of the Global Health Council, has argued, one is only ever as safe as the least safe place. That sounds like a version of the motto of the Wobblies, the radical trade union, that an injury to one is an injury to all. Nobody can buy immunity, let alone immortality; nobody can wash his hands of conditions that make the United States look more like a failed state than a functioning democracy.

A decade ago, the historian Tony Judt wrote, If social democracy has a future, it will be a social democracy of fear. To be sure, fear can always be turned against foreigners something right-wing populists are busy trying to do now. But it can also motivate us to see through the fog of fake individualism and realize that interdependence requires proper infrastructure: from a public health system to an informational infrastructure where platforms like Facebook are forced to remove falsehoods that cost lives.

A large economic stimulus, as the White House is proposing, is all well and good, but structural change is whats desperately needed; charity is appreciated, but will never make up for a dysfunctional government; and business, which by definition, is in it for profit (and now bailouts), cannot be relied on to take care of us.

Jan-Werner Mller teaches at Princeton and is the author of the forthcoming Democracy Rules.

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Originally posted here:
We Must Help One Another or Die - The New York Times

The cancellation emails started arriving last Wednesday. Openings were called off and galleries announced they would operate on an appointment-only basis, if at all. By Thursday evening, many prominent museums had announced closures, with few offering even tentative reopening dates. Cinemas, theaters, and concert halls went dark. As governors and mayors around the country contemplate shelter-in-place orders for citizens, the cultural sector is already shut down.

Much of what has been lost cant be quantified: poetry readings that will never happen, long-planned performances postponed indefinitely, solo exhibitions the public will never see. Some of this disappointment will be mitigated by the virtual presentations that curators are racing to prepare. The closures could be also short-lived; museums in China are already starting to operate again. The artists and performers affected by an immediate loss of income will benefit from some of the stimulus funds that Congress is likely to release, and some galleries could take advantage of measures designed to protect small businesses of all kinds, including bookstores, restaurants, and bars. Mutual aid funds, like the one set up for cinema workers in New York, have helped furloughed employees through the first week of this crisis.

But these measures are inadequate to address the longer-term economic impact of the pandemic. Things are going to get worse. The art world as it existed as of February 2020 wont come back. Its time to formulate a bailout that can sustain artists and culture workers in the short term while laying plans to rebuild cultural infrastructure for a sustainable future.

The pandemic has revealed weak points across society: in our patchwork healthcare system, in our social safety, and in our federal crisis management capacity. Theres no reason to believe that the system of private philanthropy on which the art world has come to rely will prove more resilient. Cultural funding is contingent on the wealthiest citizens, and were witnessing a potentially vast decimation of wealth.

Many of the institutions that support artistic productionboth for-profit and nonprofitare precarious in the best of times. Short-term closures combined with an extended demand shock could wipe out the small and midsize art galleries that have played a vital role in nurturing emerging artists and accelerate the consolidation of the commercial trade around a small number of large dealers.

Artists, and the institutions that provide them with platforms, are now facing the worst economic circumstances since the Great Depression. This comparison sounds bleak, but it should also offer hope. In the 1930s, artists pushed the government to create support structures robust enough to counter the economic crisis. Rather than aim to keep a collapsing system alive, they sought to create a new and more equitable one.

Perceiving that formerly wealthy people were no longer able or willing to support the arts, the writer and curator Holger Cahill came up with an effective alternative: bolster a government agency that would give cash directly to artists. Cahill led the Federal Art Project, a New Deal initiative that worked in tandem with the Works Progress Administration. Through the FAP, thousands of artists received weekly payments of about $24, equivalent to $460 in todays dollars. In return, they created easel paintings, worked on mural teams, and documented folk art and craft traditions around the country. Related programs catalyzed the creation of new public museums, like the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Cahill perceived the Depression as an opportunity to realign the role of culture within society. He bemoaned the pre-crash understanding of art: We have helped to push art from its honorable place as a vital necessity of everyday life and have made of it a luxury product intended for the casual enjoyment of jaded wealth. And wealth has practically stopped demanding the product. As private demand lagged, his solution was to reimagine art as a public good.

The immediate short-term effect was to keep artists working, but over time it led to a major cultural flourishing. The Whitney Museums exhibition Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 19251945 shows how the FAP laid the foundation for the great postwar rise of art in the United States. The major artists of the New York School all received support from FAP as they took aesthetic influence from their Mexican counterparts.

There are of course plenty of reasons to be wary of broad public support for the arts. Creative efforts often mix poorly with bureaucratic processes. During the Depression, many artists complained about the burdens of meeting FAP requirements. During the culture wars of the 1980s, the National Endowment for the Arts became a political football. But these experiences offer lessons to build on, not templates to replicate exactly. What FAP shows is that robust social support for artists and art centers succeeded within living memory.

As industries across the board line up for bailouts, it is time to assert culture as an essential industry and map out a role for the arts that would have seemed unimaginable weeks ago. A new Federal Art Project probably wouldnt be devoted to mural painting, but it could offer an alternative to a flailing market and channel artworks into public collections. Museums, now supported through tax-deductible donations, could receive more direct public funding in exchange for offering free admission. Private markets and philanthropy will be changed on the other side of this pandemic, so it is time once again to envision what art looks like as a public good.

Continued here:
The Cultural Bailout We Need Has Been a Long Time Coming - ARTnews

The Brexit culture wars are back. On Saturday, the Guardian published an article entitled: 'Brexit means coronavirus vaccine will be slower to reach the UK.' As usual with such pieces, the words 'if' and 'could' do more heavy lifting than Atlas.

The gist of the article's argument is that leaving the European Medicines Agency (EMA) means the UK will no longer be able to benefit from processes that expedite the authorisation of pharmaceuticals for use. This is because manufacturers may decide to meet the approval process for the much larger EU market first before applying to the UK regulator for approval here. That might be true, but only if the UK sets its own regulations in this way. There is an alternative to this approach, which the authors recognise briefly:

'The UK could, in theory, choose to recognise any approval decision made by the EMA to prevent delays, but this seems at odds with the UK governments pledge to take back control.'

And there we have it. Apparently, faced with a raging pandemic, the UK government would refuse to use a vaccine licensed for use elsewhere because it doesnt fit with a slogan.

The obvious point here is that recognising the EMA's decision would not be 'rule-taking'. Rule-taking would be being refused permission by someone else to use a drug that another regulator had approved for use, as is the case in EU member states.

In reality, the government could followSingaporeandrecognise any pharmaceuticals that have been approved by any of the principle regulatory agencies: The US FDA, the Australian TGA, the EMA, Health Canada, or, indeed, the UKs MHRA, following a six-week verification evaluation.

This is the 'mutual recognition' model of global trade, beloved of free-market Brexiteers like Daniel Hannan. It works by recognising that other governments have systems that achieve the same objective, for exampleensuring that medicine is safe for use. Just as people visit the USA and Australia and find the food safe to eat and the medicine safe for use, why shouldnt you simply be able to buy Australian and American food or medicine here without further regulation?

The EU model of trade is different, demanding that other countries comply with their regulations in order to sell products within the single market. As such, any medicine not approved by the EMA cannot be sold there.

And given that research shows that the FDA tends to approve drugs faster than the EMA, it is possible that because of Brexit the UK could get faster access to a vaccine depending on where it is developed and licensed first.

A single line bill in Parliament could ensure instant approval for the vaccine. In fact, if the Government wanted to approve a treatment invented by a chap that Matt Hancock met down the pub then it could.

This is the meaning of 'taking back control': the government can do whatever it wants without seeking permission elsewhere, so long as it can pass a bill through Parliament. And yes, that includes approving a vaccine for Covid-19.

See the rest here:
Brexit won't stop the coronavirus vaccine reaching the UK - Spectator.co.uk