Boris Johnson’s latest dilemma shines the spotlight on a post-Brexit Britain, as the country exits the European Union in a matter of days. A year ago this time, after clocking the paltry patrician Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain’s general elections, Prime Minister Johnson strutted about like a proud peacock. Now he dithers like a barely lucky yet weakened wildebeest after an encounter with an unforgiving lion. If the Greeks were writing this story, it would be some combination of Icarus at Damocles’ table – Brexit meeting the coronavirus.
This week, a French minister of state for European affairs, Clement Beaune, taunted the UK over the blockade of freight and passengers – boasting that there would be no food shortages in his own country. Mr. Johnson might have expected Nigel Farage and the group of merry gas-lighters who fueled Brexit – those who stood up and told the European Parliament last year how happy they were to be returning home – to shoulder some of the blame, beyond lip-service. But no such luck. They are all angry at Prime Minister Johnson now – for “canceling Christmas.” As many parts of the UK face Christmas and the new year under the pandemic era’s most stringent restrictions, Mr Johnson’s luter is starting to wear off.
But not only are Britons now thoroughly fatigued by Mr. Johnson’s erratic pandemic leadership, but the international community is likewise condemning his hubris and indecisiveness that now has the U.K. wading in a sea of virus explosion by mutation. With U.S. President Donald Trump on his way out, Mr. Johnson now appears even further isolated.
According to The Guardian, Mr. Johnson is also getting an international roasting for Britain’s events unfolding. In the eyes of the world’s media, Britain – a ‘Plague Island’ led by a man who thinks “optimism is a substitute for hard truths and proper management” – is currently getting a good lesson in “what ‘reclaiming sovereignty’ means.”
For France’s Libération, the continental blockade was “even more effective than that decreed by Napoleon in 1806, cutting Britain off from the rest of Europe and from parts of the rest of the world.” And in his fight with Johnson for fishing rights, Emmanuel Macron knew this very well.
The New York Times reports that “Britain, “christened not long ago by a pro-Brexit lawmaker as ‘Treasure Island’ for the riches it offers, has earned another moniker – ‘Plague Island’ … And for their troubles, Britons largely blamed Boris Johnson.”
Germany’s Die Welt attributes much of the blame to Boris Johnson, whose U-turn on Christmas had “once more shown the yawning gulf between the prime minister’s airy promises and the real world.”
The Netherlands’ NRC Handelsblad said that no one in the UK would have a normal Christmas: “not even a tiny bit of one. The ports are closed; London’s stations witnessed a veritable exodus; tens of kilometers of trucks are stranded on the country’s motorways; ministers are publicly saying the virus is out of control.”
Spain’s El País was worried about what might come next. “The pressure is mounting,” it said. “The short time left until the end of transition has been exacerbated by alarm over the new variant, and the closing of EU borders. The chaos feared at the end of the year has come 10 days early. Johnson’s reactions may even more unpredictable.”
The Sydney Morning Herald had a brutal assessment. It says Britain’s response to the pandemic had been “mired in inaction, plagued by failures of the state to mobilize and Johnson’s own destructive habit of promising false dawns simply because he cannot stand to be the bearer of bad news.”
Read analysis at The Guardian->
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