The collapse of Boris Johnson’s government and the ousting of the British Prime Minister, the third since the Brexit referendum in 2016, has left the EU with the aftertaste of an endless, embarrassing and repeating history. Between impatience and sarcasm, Brussels views the political disaster London has suffered since the country’s exit from the EU began, a rift that seemed destined to undermine the very foundations of the community club and which instead saw the implosion of a British government has caused one after another, fueling centrifugal forces in Scotland and Northern Ireland with the potential to shatter the integrity of the UK.
For the third time in a very short space of time, Brussels is witnessing the collapse of a government mired in, among other things, the management of Brexit, an exit from the EU approved in 2016 and completed in 2020 but which continues to shake political currents around the world United Kingdom. In Johnson’s case, Brexit wasn’t the last straw, as it was for his predecessors David Cameron and Theresa May, but it has compounded the decay of a government surrounded by domestic scandals and stunned by the prime minister’s erratic leadership.
European sources confirm their astonishment, not without a certain glee, at the resounding ouster of Johnson, a prime minister who has built most of his political career – and before that a journalistic one – on denigrating the European Union and attributing Brussels the origin of all Evils that happened on British soil. Even after leaving the EU in early 2020, Johnson has cultivated anti-European rhetoric to justify violating the Brexit accords negotiated and approved by his executive and ratified by a Conservative majority in Westminster’s parliament .
However, the same sources do not hide their concerns about the risk of an implosion of a UK where Scotland, which overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU, is already preparing a second consultation to offer non-binding advice on independence. Brussels fears that territorial tensions in the UK will encourage movements in some similar regions, as happened in the Scottish independence referendum that Cameron accepted in 2014.
For Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt, “Boris Johnson’s term in office ended as badly as that of his friend Donald Trump”. And he wonders, “Is this the end of an era of transatlantic populism? Let’s hope so. EU-UK relations have suffered badly from Johnson’s chosen style of Brexit. It can only get better!”
Last June, Johnson shattered what little confidence he had inspired in Brussels by launching a draft law that the European Commission said would go against the agreements made to maintain peace and stability in Britain as a result of Brexit province of Northern Ireland. “This British law is extremely damaging to mutual trust and respect between the EU and the UK,” warned European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic.
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The community body resumed an open file against London in 2021 for breaching the Northern Ireland Protocol and opened two other files, all of which would likely end up in the EU Court of Justice and face London with hefty fines if it defied judgements.
The bill was met with opposition even within Johnson’s own parliamentary ranks, with several Conservative MPs, including former Prime Minister Theresa May, voicing their opposition and warning that Britain’s international credibility was at risk. That clash contributed to Johnson’s downfall, initially sparked by his violation of national norms during the pandemic and his toleration of a political ally accused of sexual harassment.
“I have to admit that when Cameron argued against it, it’s hard not to look on with a certain sense of irony, and I quote, ‘just waiting for a difficult situation to go away,’ end of quote,” Sefcovic said. on June 29, in a speech at Bloomberg’s London headquarters, alluding to the promise of a referendum made there in 2013 by the then British Prime Minister. “Because that speech started a series of events that are still ongoing today, a decade later,” Sefcovic concluded.
In that January 2013 speech, then-Downing Street tenant David Cameron announced his plan to reform the European Union, threatening to put the club’s exit to a referendum if his proposals were not passed. The challenge cost Cameron his job just hours after the looming consultation took place in June 2016 and the option to leave the EU was imposed. Since then, Brexit has engulfed the British political class, particularly a Conservative party that lost its third consecutive leader after Cameron and his successor Theresa May (2016-2019) resigned this Thursday.
“An undignified spectacle is finally over,” proclaimed German MEP Bernd Lange, a member of the EU-UK contact group set up by the European Parliament to oversee the Brussels-London deal, after announcing Johnson’s resignation. the abandonment of the community club by the British. French MEP Nathalie Loiseau, member of the same group, has stressed that there is now “hope to improve EU-UK relations based on trust and full and good application of the agreements signed and jointly ratified.
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