Boris, Brexit & Britain October 2020- June 2022

Brexit: What is the Irish border backstop?
The Guardian Brexit
BBC: Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU
The Good Friday Agreement in the Age of Brexit
Brexit, EU & UK – June 2019
Boris, Brexit & Britain July-November 2019
London’s 2021 fireworks Happy New Year Live!

7 June
Boris Johnson survived the no-confidence vote. Can he cling on to power? Our panel’s verdict
Polly Toynbee, Bob Neill, David Lammy, Devi Sridhar, Ed Davey, Dawn Butler and Zubaida Haque
(The Guardian) Polly Toynbee: He will be on the run from booing from now on
They will get their comeuppance, those 211 cowardly MPs, crawlers and placemen who clung to their grotesquely unfit leader. The public’s mind is made up.
(The Economist today/Sunday edition) Adam Roberts: Britain is shaking off the effects of four days of flag-waving and street parties to mark 70 years of the queen’s reign. But it is Boris Johnson who may endure the worst hangover. Many Conservative MPs have spent the past few days listening to constituents’ anger over his lies and incomplete apologies for Downing Street parties during covid-19 lockdowns. Two by-elections loom in June, where Conservatives risk defeat that would bode ill for a future general election. Reportedly dozens of MPs are now calling for a leadership contest within the ruling party, so the odds of a vote coming soon are shortening. We think Mr Johnson would probably win, but his hold on power is looking less secure.
Boris Johnson wins ‘no-confidence’ vote: but the margin will make him nervous
Christopher Kirkland, Lecturer in Politics, York St John University
(The Conversation) Boris Johnson has survived a “no-confidence” vote by 211 votes to 148 votes against his leadership. But Johnson’s margin of victory is smaller (as a percentage of all Conservative MPs) than that achieved by his predecessor Theresa May in 2019, six months before she resigned and he won the support of the majority of the Conservative Party and took office. Now, after weeks of speculation during the “partygate” scandal, 40% of his MPs have attempted to vote him out of power.

2-5 June
Queen Makes Surprise Appearance as Jubilee Pageant Ends
The Queen appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony alongside Prince Charles and Camilla, and Prince William and Kate as a culmination of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

The [Q]ueen and Paddington Bear light up a rocking palace
(WaPo) Finally, after 70 years, we now know what’s inside Queen Elizabeth II’s famous handbag: a stash of marmalade sandwiches.
That, at least, was what the queen revealed in a comic sketch with Paddington Bear that rocked Buckingham Palace and delighted viewers around the world.
The segment was aired at a concert held at the palace Saturday night, the third day of festivities celebrating the queen’s record-breaking Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne. Thousands flocked to the palace in London to watch the star-studded concert and witness floating corgis and teapots in the skies in a stunning show of drones and lights. Millions more watched at home on the BBC.
Barack Obama: Today, I’m joining those around the world in celebrating Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It is with gratitude for your leadership and the kindness you’ve shown me and my family that I say, may the light of your crown continue to reign supreme. (video)
The Queen and Paddington Bear Ma’amalade sandwich Your Majesty? (video)
Queen Elizabeth Celebrates 70 Years on the Throne, as Britons Honor Her
With columns of Scots and Irish guards, throngs of Union Jack-clad admirers and waves of aircraft roaring overhead, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated 70 years on the throne Thursday, earning tributes from world leaders and ordinary people for one of history’s great acts of constancy.
Shortly before 1 p.m., the queen stepped out onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet a sea of well-wishers, stretching down the Mall toward Trafalgar Square. She stood at the helm of four generations of the royal family, a vivid tableau that captured both the monarchy’s timeless durability and a modern family’s internal stresses.
Three heirs to the throne stood alongside her: her eldest son, Prince Charles; his eldest son, Prince William; and William’s eldest son, Prince George.

31 May
Queen Elizabeth II: A visual timeline of her 70 years on the throne
By Frank Hulley-Jones, Ruby Mellen, Adela Suliman and Sarah Hashemi
Portrait photograph by John Hedgecoe, 1966
Illustrations by Marianna Tomaselli for The Washington Post
(WaPo) Monarch since age 25, she has been served by 14 British prime ministers and met with 13 U.S. presidents. She has presided over the shrinking of the British Empire and the rise of globalization. She has anchored the country through uncertainty — and the royal family’s own dramas.
As Britain this week celebrates Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne, here are some key moments from her long reign and life.

19 May
Europe’s Ireland Problem Is Here to Stay
Brexit created a problem that cannot be solved, only managed. Both Britain and the European Union are responsible for what happens now.
By Tom McTague
(The Atlantic) To “get Brexit done” after years of turmoil, Johnson agreed to a divorce deal with the EU that placed the economic border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain—within the U.K.—to avoid requiring checks on goods traveling between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Ever since this was agreed, however, Northern Irish politics has been in turmoil, with British unionists arguing—reasonably—that the deal prioritizes Irish nationalists’ wishes not to have a land border on the island of Ireland over unionists’ desire not to have a sea border within their own country. In protest, unionists are refusing to share power until the issue is fixed to their satisfaction. And so, a deal apparently made to protect the Good Friday Agreement is the main block to the functioning of the political institutions set up by the Good Friday Agreement.
In ordinary circumstances, a border should not be an issue. Economic borders tend to sit alongside national borders. The problem is that Northern Ireland is not ordinary, but a land divided between those who consider themselves Irish (and who mostly want Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and join the Republic of Ireland, an independent country in the EU), and those who consider themselves British (and who mostly want Northern Ireland to remain in the U.K., separate from the Republic of Ireland). Wherever an economic border is placed, one side of this divide is going to feel separated from the land they consider home. This is a problem because under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which everyone claims to want to protect, Northern Ireland remains part of the U.K. until a majority there (and in the Republic) says otherwise, but is governed by a system that functions only if power is shared between the sides. And to do this, there must be a consensus.
On Monday, Johnson traveled to Northern Ireland for talks with political leaders and issued a warning that unless the EU agreed to change the arrangement (that he signed up to), he would introduce new laws in the U.K. to unilaterally override some of its provisions. In response, the EU has warned that it could suspend its post-Brexit trade agreement with Britain, effectively beginning a trade war between the two sides. Such is the seriousness of the situation that U.S. President Joe Biden has intervened to caution Johnson against acting unilaterally.

10 April
A wink and a walk: Boris Johnson’s warm welcome on secret Kyiv visit
The PM flew to Poland and then travelled by Ukrainian rail for his meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy

15 February
Boris Johnson says Russia is sending ‘mixed signals’ on Ukraine
UK prime minister makes comments shortly after emergency Cobra meeting on the situation

13 February
Boris Johnson eyes Baltic and Nordic states amid Ukraine crisis
(Politico Eu) Boris Johnson is launching a fresh diplomatic offensive aimed at Europe’s Nordic and Baltic states as he tries to “get Russia to step back from the brink” of invading Ukraine, Downing Street said on Sunday.
EU hands Britain post-Brexit olive branch – an offer to lead new security council (paywall)
European leaders impressed with Westminster’s handling of the Ukraine crisis set to propose leadership of new body and put tensions behind them
(The Telegraph) Proposals for an “European Security Council” are being drawn up by Germany, the Netherlands and Poland in order to bring “Britain back into the fold” of major foreign policy discussions outside the confines of the EU.
The influential EU capitals believe it is now time to end years of bitterness after Brexit and forge new ties based on security and global co-operation, all to ensure Europe is better positioned to tackle world crises, in areas such as the Ukraine crisis and future pandemics.
A group of countries are already urging Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, to personally reach out to Boris Johnson to “bring Britain back into the fold”. Berlin is considered to have enough political heft to ensure the proposals, which are still in their early stages, have maximum impact. “Continental leaders need to say we’re sitting down, and it would be great if you sat down with us,” a senior European diplomat told the Telegraph.

3 February
Analysis: A change of style? UK’s Johnson fights for political survival
Gaffe-prone PM vows better cabinet, access for lawmakers
Conservatives want him to start fulfilling policy pledges
Return of ‘strategic adviser’ Crosby carries risks
(Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to shake up operations in his 10 Downing Street office to try to survive his gravest crisis yet over boozy events held at the heart of power during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Key to the organisational changes is a promise he made on Monday to lawmakers from his Conservative Party at a meeting in parliament to turn to Lynton Crosby, an Australian political strategist who has helped him before and is respected by many Conservative lawmakers, as an ad hoc “strategic adviser”.

25 January
UK government holds breath as it awaits ‘partygate’ report
(AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson braced Wednesday for the conclusions of an investigation into allegations of lockdown-breaching parties, a document that could help him end weeks of scandal and discontent, or bring his time in office to an abrupt close.
Senior civil servant Sue Gray is probing allegations that the prime minister and his staff flouted restrictions they imposed on the country in 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread of the coronavirus with “bring your own booze” office parties, birthday celebrations and “wine time Fridays.”

13-21 January
First rebellion against Johnson was doomed; the next may not be
(Reuters) – A rebellion against Prime Minister Boris Johnson by some of his Conservative Party’s newest members of parliament (MPs) quickly collapsed this week – but might just be a foretaste of the trouble ahead.
Tory MPs openly discuss Johnson challenge as mood ‘turns dramatically’
MPs from across party confident of enough letters to trigger leadership contest after Sue Gray’s report
This is a Boris Johnson scandal that even the great trickster can’t blag his way out of
Andrew Rawnsley
(The Guardian) The defenestration of a prime minister between elections is usually triggered by a seismic event. … If Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson soon joins the gallery of toppled PMs, it will be because he attended a “bring your own booze” party in the back garden of Number 10 and his aides had a lockdown-busting piss-up in Downing Street the night before the Queen buried her husband.
5 ways Boris Johnson’s Partygate scandal could play out
The UK prime minister is facing a storm of criticism over a lockdown party in his own government department.
(Politico Eu) MPs, including some in Johnson’s own party, have publicly called for his resignation — and normally-supportive newspapers have turned against him. While Cabinet ministers have tried to defend their boss, a few big names have been less-than-convincing

Prince Andrew: Ruthless royals move to limit the damage
(BBC) Royal historian Robert Lacey described it as Prince Andrew being “de-royalled”.

2021

Beyond Global Britain: A realistic foreign policy for the UK
As a recent poll conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows, the British public as a whole are, at best, indifferent to the restoration of Britain as a global military power and, in the wake of Brexit, have no particular animus towards the EU.
Accordingly, this paper offers a justification and a blueprint for how an independent Britain could profit from its unique assets, its geographic position, and – most importantly – a close strategic partnership with the EU to both protect its sovereignty in a world of heightened geopolitical competition and become a force in global affairs. As is also reflected in ECFR’s poll, such a policy can command political support in the UK, despite the daily drumbeat of EU-bashing by the Johnson government.

21 December
‘A fire-eater who’s run out of fuel’: European press lays into Boris Johnson
Continental media sensing the ‘beginning of the end’
(The Guardian) For El País in Spain, his “magic has vanished”. For Libération in France he is “the only actor in the Boris Johnson show – which is, increasingly, a flop”. In Germany, Der Spiegel asked how long Britain could last being governed “almost exclusively by defiant optimism”.
As the scandals mount, the approval ratings plunge, the electoral defeats accumulate, the rebellions multiply, his trusted Brexit lieutenant jumps ship and the Omicron variant runs rampant, continental media seem – to coin a phrase – in no mood to donner un break to Britain’s beleaguered prime minister.
Der Spiegel said bluntly that barely two years after “the apparently glorious election victory of the political entertainer”, Johnson today resembles “a fire-eater who’s run out of fuel: no more sparks, no flickering flames, only cold smoke rising over Downing Street.”
The paper’s London correspondent, Jörg Schindler, however, concluded it was not yet certain the prime minister with “a Pinocchio-like relationship with the truth” was about to leave the stage. Despite partygate, wallpapergate and countless other scandals, Johnson had “never made a secret of the fact that he only knows one moral code: his”.

18 December
Brexit minister’s shock resignation leaves Boris Johnson reeling
Lord Frost’s frustrated exit is yet another blow for PM struggling for control of his government
(The Guardian) Boris Johnson was dealt another major blow to his leadership on Saturday night as it emerged that the man overseeing Brexit was resigning from the cabinet.
… Frost has also had to accept concessions over Brexit, with the British government dropping its demand to block the European court of justice from being the ultimate arbiter of trade rules in Northern Ireland.
The government has also backed away from his threat to trigger article 16 of the Brexit agreement, which would suspend parts of the trade deal agreed for Northern Ireland.
In a letter to the PM released on Saturday night, Frost said he was “disappointed that this plan has become public this evening and in the circumstances I think it is right for me to write to step down with immediate effect”.
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Frost thanked Johnson and said: “Brexit is now secure … the challenge for the government now is to deliver on the opportunities it gives us. You know my concerns about the current direction of travel.”

10 December
Chris Patten: Boris Johnson and the Virtue of Accountability
A central advantage of genuinely democratic societies is that their leaders cannot get away indefinitely with bad, corrupt, or self-serving behavior. At long last, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson now seems to be finding that out.

9 December
Boris Johnson, Miles Davis, and Brexit
(GZERO) “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” The words of jazz genius Miles Davis are surely resonating with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who flew to Brussels on Wednesday to iron out a post-Brexit trade agreement before the UK formally leaves the European Union — with or without a deal — on January 1.
While it was the first face-to-face meeting between Johnson and European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, since January, it’s been four years since UK citizens voted in a referendum to leave the EU.
For the UK, the stakes are very high. If no deal is reached by January 1, British businesses that have long benefitted from access to the bloc’s customs union will find themselves facing massive bureaucratic hurdles and high costs on goods crossing borders.
This is a big deal considering the UK does more than half of all its trade within the EU, which imports 43 percent of all British goods. If no deal is reached in the next few weeks, analysts warn, Britons could soon see some staples pulled from supermarket shelves, stranded transport vehicles with nowhere to deliver goods, and a floundering manufacturing sector.
For the EU, the stakes are high. Decades of free trade with the UK that have been a boon for EU businesses could come to an abrupt end in a no-deal scenario. It could make the GDP of the EU, which has long enjoyed a healthy trade surplus with the UK, contract by 0.5 percent in the near term if European companies have to pay tariffs and meet quotas.
Importantly, the Europeans are also worried that London will cut social and environmental standards, and become a low-regulation economic competitor like China, which continues to flood the bloc’s market.

18 September-1 October
Britain Is Heading Into a Nightmarish Winter
By Samuel Earle, journalist who writes often about Britain’s politics and culture.
(NYT Opinion) Long lines outside gas stations. Panicked drivers fighting one another as the pumps run dry. Soldiers deployed to distribute fuel across the country. And in the background, the pandemic stretching on, food rotting in fields and families sinking into poverty. This is Britain in 2021.
A dramatic fuel crisis, which has been caused in large part by a lack of truck drivers and at its peak forced around a third of all gas stations to close, is only the most glaring concern.
A convergence of problems — a global gas shortage, rising energy and food prices, supply-chain issues and the Conservatives’ decision to slash welfare — has cast the country’s future in darkness. …
For many months, industry leaders across the economy have warned about chronic labor shortages — of truck drivers, yes, but also fruit pickers, meat processors, waiters and health care workers — disrupting supply chains and impeding businesses.
The signs of breakdown are everywhere: empty shelves in supermarkets, food going to waste in fields, more and more vacancy posters tacked to the windows of shops and restaurants. Meat producers have even called on the government to let them hire prisoners to plug the gap.
The U.K.’s Gas Crisis Is a Brexit Crisis, Too
Until now, the government has blamed Covid-related restrictions for a spate of shortages. But as virus restrictions ease and fuel runs short, the focus is shifting to Britain’s exit from the E.U.
While it would be wrong to blame a crisis with global ramifications solely on Brexit, there are Brexit-specific causes that are indisputable: Of the estimated shortfall of 100,000 truck drivers, about 20,000 are non-British drivers who left the country during the pandemic and have not returned in part because of more stringent, post-Brexit visa requirements to work in the country, which took effect this year.

16 September
Theresa May questions whether Aukus pact could lead to war over Taiwan
Ex-PM asks Boris Johnson what UK’s obligations would be under deal if China attempted to invade island

15 September
Boris Johnson lays groundwork for general election with ruthless reshuffle
Cabinet reshuffle clears out failing ministers and rewards those with positive publicity
(The Guardian) On a day of dramatic developments in Westminster, Johnson sacked three cabinet ministers including the gaffe-prone education secretary Gavin Williamson, and shifted Dominic Raab from the Foreign Office to the Ministry of Justice. Liz Truss, the media-savvy darling of Conservative grassroots members and champion of free markets, will replace Raab as foreign secretary.
Raab managed to wrest the consolation title of deputy prime minister from Johnson after fraught negotiations but the move to justice secretary was widely seen as punishment for his role in the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan last month.
‘In Liz we Truss’: UK gets first female Conservative foreign secretary
Foreign secretary’s first international trip could be to New York next week for UN meeting
Trade champion Liz Truss out to show Brexit can work as foreign secretary
(The Times) Liz Truss becomes foreign secretary with an ambition for “economic diplomacy”. Her appointment offers Boris Johnson a chance to show the world that Brexit can work, while also giving him a potential leadership rival and a geostrategic tussle over Britain’s place in the world.
Truss is far more hawkish on China than the prime minister, aligning herself with the American shift towards confrontation with Beijing. She was promoted after becoming the surprise star of the administration through her energetic promotion of post-Brexit trade deals.
She is understood to want to make Britain’s foreign policy more closely aligned with its trading interests, using the power of the diplomatic service and the aid budget to boost exports.
Boris’s Thatcherite new Cabinet will fail to reverse Britain’s dangerous Left-wing drift
by Allistair Heath
(The Telegraph) On the face of it, Boris Johnson’s reshuffle is good news for disgruntled Tory voters, especially those of a Thatcherite persuasion. … by Allistair Heath
On the face of it, Boris Johnson’s reshuffle is good news for disgruntled Tory voters, especially those of a Thatcherite persuasion. Whether it was because he was seeking to atone for last week’s absurd, nihilistic tax increases, or it was simply a lucky by-product of the usual politicking, Johnson has promoted a series of figures from the reformist wing of his party.
The most striking is Liz Truss: the born-again Brexiteer who covered herself with glory negotiating trade deals is now Foreign Secretary, a much-deserved promotion. The most prominent libertarian in government, she remains a steadfast supporter of free markets, individual liberty and classical liberal values; the fact that she spoke out in Cabinet against the national insurance increase and lived to tell the tale suggests that all hope isn’t lost. Her replacement as Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, will continue her drive towards free trade.
The useless Gavin Williamson’s defenestration was long overdue: Nadhim Zahawi, a Brexiteer, will be a breath of fresh air at the Department for Education. A self-made millionaire, Zahawi, who was born in Iraq, represents the new, patriotic Tory party. His task will be to take on the unions that are using Covid as an excuse to ruin so many children’s lives, and the out-of-control, Left-wing university administrators.
While Dominic Raab’s demotion is unfair, at least he has ended up in charge of reforming human rights and criminal justice, areas where his instincts are spot on. Even Michael Gove’s shift to Communities Secretary can be read as a positive. He supports building more homes, although will be hamstrung by the Government’s series of concessions on planning reform.
Other Brexiteers have been promoted, and four out of five co-authors of Britannia Unchained, the radical free-market tract, hold Cabinet positions. The reshuffle also sends a powerful message about Tory meritocracy, with two of the top four offices of state held by women, and two by ethnic minorities.
Johnson has promoted a series of figures from the reformist wing of his party.
The most striking is Liz Truss: the born-again Brexiteer who covered herself with glory negotiating trade deals is now Foreign Secretary, a much-deserved promotion. The most prominent libertarian in government, she remains a steadfast supporter of free markets, individual liberty and classical liberal values; the fact that she spoke out in Cabinet against the national insurance increase and lived to tell the tale suggests that all hope isn’t lost. Her replacement as Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, will continue her drive towards free trade.
The useless Gavin Williamson’s defenestration was long overdue: Nadhim Zahawi, a Brexiteer, will be a breath of fresh air at the Department for Education. A self-made millionaire, Zahawi, who was born in Iraq, represents the new, patriotic Tory party. His task will be to take on the unions that are using Covid as an excuse to ruin so many children’s lives, and the out-of-control, Left-wing university administrators.
While Dominic Raab’s demotion is unfair, at least he has ended up in charge of reforming human rights and criminal justice, areas where his instincts are spot on. Even Michael Gove’s shift to Communities Secretary can be read as a positive. He supports building more homes, although will be hamstrung by the Government’s series of concessions on planning reform.
Other Brexiteers have been promoted, and four out of five co-authors of Britannia Unchained, the radical free-market tract, hold Cabinet positions. The reshuffle also sends a powerful message about Tory meritocracy, with two of the top four offices of state held by women, and two by ethnic minorities.

21-23 July
Stonehenge may be next UK site to lose world heritage status
Britain is eroding global reputation for conserving its historic assets, culture bodies are warning
The UK is eroding its global reputation for conserving its “unparalleled” historic assets, culture bodies have warned, with Stonehenge expected to be next in line to lose its coveted World Heritage status after Liverpool.
The UN’s heritage body has told ministers that Wiltshire’s cherished stone circle will be placed on its “in danger” list – the precursor to it being stripped of world heritage status – if a £1.7bn road tunnel goes ahead as planned.
Heritage bodies said on Friday that Unesco would throw a “harsher spotlight” on the UK’s other 31 listed sites, which include the Palace of Westminster and Kew Gardens, after Liverpool became only the third place in nearly 50 years to be stripped of its world heritage status.
Other sites expected to come under greater scrutiny from the UN agency include Stonehenge, Edinburgh’s new and old towns, the Tower of London and Cornwall’s historic mining area, all of which have attracted concerns over controversial developments.
Unesco strips Liverpool of its world heritage status
UN body says years of development have caused ‘irreversible loss’ to historic value of Victorian docks

21 July
UK says it wants to substantially rewrite Northern Ireland Brexit protocol
Brexit minister warns ‘we cannot go on as we are’ as he publishes blueprint for alternative arrangement
(BBC) The UK has launched an attempt to substantially rewrite the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol that Boris Johnson signed up to in 2019, arguing that “we cannot go on as we are” given the “ongoing febrile political climate” in the region.
But as he unveiled the UK’s blueprint for an alternative, the Brexit minister stopped short of ripping up the document completely or arguing that the time was right to trigger the article 16 provision, which enables either the UK or EU to suspend part of the arrangements in extreme circumstances.

9 July
Northern Ireland to Frost: Enforce the protocol, don’t fight it
Business chiefs and Irish nationalists tell UK minister the post-Brexit trade deal works for them
(Politico EU) During a one-day visit to Northern Ireland, Britain’s chief architect of the U.K.’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU visited Newry, a border town, where businesses are building trade with the Republic of Ireland. The protocol keeps cross-border commerce in the town flowing freely with its EU neighbors.
“Our businesses are broadly happy with the protocol. A lot of them are benefitting from it,” Newry’s chamber of commerce chief, Colm Shannon, told Frost.

2 July
France gives Brits three more months to apply for post-Brexit residence cards
British residents call for clarity on how late applications will be treated.

18 June
How the Brexit referendum was spun and lost (podcast)
5 years on from the Brexit referendum, two key figures in the Leave and Remain campaigns reflect on what happened, and how it could have been different.
(Politico EU) David Cameron would have won the EU referendum with different tactics and a different Labour leader in support, one of Vote Leave’s most senior figures told POLITICO.
Speaking to a special edition of the Westminster Insider podcast, marking the five-year anniversary of the Brexit referendum, Vote Leave’s director of communications Paul Stephenson blamed Cameron’s flawed approach and Jeremy Corbyn’s natural Euroskepticism for the Remain campaign’s failure to win the day.
He said Cameron’s biggest error had been trying to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership ahead of the referendum — effectively setting himself up to fail.
Stephenson — a central figure in Vote Leave HQ alongside Dominic Cummings, who went on to be Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide — said the election of Corbyn as Labour leader had also proved a gift to his campaign.
“I think if any other of the Labour leadership contenders had been leader of the Labour Party, then we would have lost,” Stephenson said. “There wasn’t really a Labour campaign until it was almost too late … It was after the local elections in May [2016] when they really came out working as a party. They had a huge amount of money they could spend, they had a huge amount of ground troops — and those people just weren’t out there.”
“We were out early on with red leaflets … And [Corbyn’s] silence allowed us to move into a space that shouldn’t have existed. He allowed us to go after the working class ‘small-c’ conservative vote that was naturally quite Euroskeptic. They conceded a huge amount of ground there. And I think, say, if Andy Burnham had been in charge, I don’t think we would have had as much space to move into.”
Craig Oliver, Cameron’s own director of communications and a key figure in the Remain campaign, agreed that Corbyn caused endless problems for his side.
Oliver was happy to accept his own side’s shortcomings, however, and offered a withering appraisal of Remain’s complacency ahead of the campaign.
“The reality is, I think that the metropolitan liberal elite — of which I consider myself probably part — had assumed that people would listen to the establishment,” Oliver said. “That they might not like it, but they’d probably ‘do what was probably good for them’ in the end. I think that probably was an assumption that was below the surface, if people are honest about it.”
But he was equally scathing about Vote Leave’s relentless focus on immigration in the final weeks of the campaign, including repeated claims that Turkey could have joined the EU — with immediate freedom of movement rights — by 2020.
“The Leave campaign very deliberately and systematically catalyzed division: deliberately set out to play upon the psychological fears of people,” Oliver said.

UK hosts G7 Summit Carbis Bay, Cornwall, 11-13 June 2021

12 June
Britain’s Boris Johnson takes shots at E.U. leaders as tensions over ‘sausage war’ threaten message of unity
(WaPo) Johnson said that E.U. nations needed to “understand that we will do whatever it takes” to protect Britain’s interests in the ongoing trade dispute that has been nicknamed the “sausage wars.” He threatened to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a move that would mean unilaterally refusing to hold up Britain’s end of the deal.
European countries fear that Britain wants to use unilateral moves such as triggering Article 16 to renegotiate the Brexit deal. And they complain that Britain is dragging its feet when it comes to other commitments that it made during the Brexit negotiations. For instance, if customs and sanitary checks in the Irish Sea are being carried [out] by British officials, Europeans have the right under the treaty to supervise those checks. But as of June, they still don’t have access to British customs.
With An Eye To History, Biden And Johnson Try To Rekindle The ‘Special Relationship’
The document is a symbolic nod to the original Atlantic Charter signed in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
(NPR) In their first face-to-face meeting, President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a 21st century version of the historic Atlantic Charter, an attempt to depict their countries as the chief global leaders taking on the world’s biggest challenges.
The two leaders pledged to work “closely with all partners who share our democratic values” and to counter “the efforts of those who seek to undermine our alliances and institutions.”
The charter encompasses a commitment to cooperate on climate change, technology and science. It also reaffirms support for NATO while underscoring opposition to election interference and disinformation campaigns.

18 May
What the UK can teach the world about engaging with China
The ‘new’ China is a globally assertive economic superpower. The UK could show the rest of the world a path towards sensible engagement. (subscription)
Howard Davies: A Brexit Post-Mortem for the City
Almost five years after the Brexit referendum, and five months after Britain’s exit from the European Union, the future of London as a global financial center seems secure. But although the City will remain Europe’s largest financial marketplace, its Golden Age as Europe’s financial capital is over.
Nearly five years after the Brexit referendum, and in the five months since Brexit itself, the debate about the future of the City, the financial center of London, has remained a dialogue of the deaf. Those who voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union believe, whatever the evidence to the contrary, that the impact will be minimal, and that the warnings of job losses and business relocation are exaggerated. Remain voters are programmed to think the opposite and, whatever the evidence to the contrary, forecast gloom and doom. What can we learn from what has actually happened?

22 April
Critics said Brexit would threaten peace in Northern Ireland. Now streets are on fire.
By Fintan O’Toole, columnist with the Irish Times.
Johnson’s triumph in 2016, and his subsequent rise to power, were based on the provision of easy answers to hard questions. The one thing even the most insouciant British politician knows about Northern Ireland is that there are none of those. So the Brexiteers, rather ironically, adopted the strategy that the poet Seamus Heaney ascribed to Northern Ireland’s own people during the Troubles: “Whatever you say, say nothing.”
First, Boris Johnson ignored Brexit’s consequences for Northern Ireland. Now the British prime minister is lying about them.
On Tuesday, a bomb was placed under the car of a policewoman in County Derry. In the first two weeks of April, dozens of police officers were injured in riots, mostly in Protestant working-class districts. The fears expressed by those in Britain and Ireland who had predicted that Brexit would be profoundly destabilizing for Britain’s most fractious region are acquiring a dark substance,”

15 April
Opinion: Why the hope for peace is waning in Northern Ireland
James Waller is the Cohen professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Keene State College in New Hampshire and the author of “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing” and “A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland
(WaPo) Although talk about its demise has existed from the moment the province was created 100 years ago, doubts over Northern Ireland’s viability as a distinct geographic, economic and political entity have never been greater.
The instability has been accelerated by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. From the moment Brexit was passed, concerns about self-determination and national allegiance again stood front and center in a society deeply divided between those who support Northern Ireland’s constitutional status within the U.K. (unionists, most often Protestant) and those believing that the north of Ireland’s true home lies with the Republic of Ireland (nationalists, most often Catholic). Both sides have starkly different views of their national identities, which makes it hard to agree on the nature of sovereignty — and the constitutional future of the province.
Nationalist communities, both north and south, are leveraging the moment to call for a referendum on formal Irish reunification. If the upcoming Scottish elections result in a move for independence from the U.K., the cries for Northern Ireland’s departure from a union that can no longer claim to be united will escalate. Additional momentum for a united Ireland will come from the 2021 Northern Ireland census, which looks likely to reveal a Catholic majority in the province for the first time in its history.

13 April
Can Northern Ireland survive Brexit?
Those who dream of a united Ireland see hope in the economic unity between north and south provided by the Brexit deal.
Irish nationalists are buoyed by demographic and electoral shifts showing that Northern Ireland, a state created a century ago to ensure a solid Protestant unionist majority, no longer has one. Results from new census data still being tabulated are expected to show that Catholics outnumber Protestants following decades of higher birth rates and lower emigration.
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 55.8 percent of Northern Ireland voters said they wanted to stay in the EU. Catholics overwhelmingly backed Remain, but so did one-third of British unionists, some of whom may be more willing to stomach joining their state to the Republic of Ireland if they could reclaim their European citizenship in the bargain.
Sinn Féin, the only major political party that contests elections in both parts of Ireland, senses that post-Brexit blues could tip a unity vote narrowly in their favor. The 1998 Good Friday peace agreement is emphatic that such a referendum would require only simple majorities in both parts of Ireland to break Northern Ireland’s constitutional bonds with Britain.
Before the ink was dry on the EU-U.K. trade deal clinched on Christmas Eve, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald declared that Irish unity now represented the best path for Northern Ireland to rejoin Europe. “EU leaders have accepted the unique position of Ireland and have agreed that the north will automatically become part of the EU in the context of a united Ireland,” she said that night.

12 April
Anger boils in Northern Ireland despite attempts to end riots
Brexit concerns and controversy over a funeral for a Sinn Fein figure have upset a delicate political balance.

9 April
The consequences of Boris Johnson’s careless Brexit are playing out in Belfast
Jonathan Freedland
This week’s violence is an ominous sign that leaving the EU took a wrecking ball to the Good Friday agreement
(The Guardian) The most powerful arguments against Brexit were never about trade and tariffs. They were about peace and war, about life and death. One was a general argument centred on the true, founding purpose of the European Union: to ensure that a continent mired in blood for centuries would not descend into conflict again. The other was more specific, peculiar to these islands: that shared membership of the EU had proved to be the key that unlocked peace in Northern Ireland after three decades of murderous pain.
The logic was simple enough. So long as both the UK and Ireland were in the same EU club, the border between them could be blurred, allowing people in the north to identify as British or Irish or both without too much friction. That was the foundation on which the Good Friday agreement, signed 23 years ago tomorrow, was built – a foundation that would be broken if either country were to break from Brussels. Taken together, these were the life-and-death arguments for continued UK membership of the EU, and some tried valiantly to make them. But they were barely heard.
Northern Ireland unrest: Four key questions answered
Long-simmering tensions have been brought to the boil by Brexit.
(Al Jazeera) At the beginning of March, Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary groups withdrew their support for the 1998 peace agreement due to concerns over the Brexit deal’s implications for the region, and pledged to oppose it by “peaceful and democratic” means.
The coalition of groups informed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that they would not back the Belfast Agreement again until the Northern Ireland Protocol was amended to ensure unfettered trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Why Tensions in Northern Ireland Have Reignited
(New York) Northern Ireland is experiencing its worst unrest in years, after seven straight days of demonstrations that left 74 police officers injured and led the White House to appeal for calm. The violence has been concentrated in unionist, predominantly Protestant communities, and may very well continue into the weekend, casting a dark shadow over the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of intermittent war, on April 10, 23 years ago.
Parties on both sides of the political divide told Intelligencer Friday morning that there are two causes for the explosive protests on the streets of Belfast and other cities. First, many unionists are angry with the way that Brexit has been imposed upon them. The Northern Ireland Protocol, negotiated by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in London, has meant the erection of new trade barriers earlier this year. And the more immediate cause for the violence, the spark that ignited an already unstable compound, was the announcement that members of Sinn Féin — the nationalist, predominantly Catholic party associated with the IRA — would not be charged for attending a funeral in apparent violation of COVID lockdown rules. But drug-dealing paramilitaries could also be involved, taking advantage of young men, restless and economically disadvantaged after a year of the pandemic, to flex some muscle.

9-10 April

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, obituary

Prince Philip was the longest-serving consort of a British monarch, described by the Queen as her ‘strength and stay’
Stephen Bates
(The Guardian) Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who has died aged 99, was the Queen’s husband for 73 years. He was the longest-serving royal consort in British history, the family’s patriarch and a well-known figure in public life for two-thirds of a century until his final disappearance into seclusion in 2019.
This was a marathon stint on which he had originally embarked with resignation, in the belief that a life of walking several steps behind his wife, curbing his opinions – though not always his tongue – and being an appendage to the institution, without even being able to pass on his surname to his children, would turn him into “nothing but a bloody amoeba”.
If his tally of accomplishments was modest, this was at least partly because the role to which he was confined had been diminished. Although Philip was intelligent, with physical presence, energy and a clipped, ironic way of speaking, he took care to conceal his intellectual interests, which included poetry and theology, behind his bluff exterior. He had a fine private art collection, painted a little himself and had a well-thumbed personal library of more than 11,000 books, with perhaps surprising inclusions such as the works of TS Eliot. “Don’t tell anyone,” he would say. Clerics visiting Balmoral or Sandringham to preach Sunday sermons could be disconcerted by his beady-eyed scrutiny from the front pew and his close questioning over lunch afterwards.
Though frustrated, particularly in the early years of the reign, by his lack of personal scope, he made the most of the role that was open to him. He was a loyal and closely engaged patron of a wide range of organisations and causes, ranging from the postwar national playing fields movement to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, of which he was patron for 55 years. He was the first UK president of the World Wildlife Fund, from 1961 to 1982, and international president from 1981 to 1996.
… Most enduring and significant was his commitment to the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, which he founded in 1956 with the German educationist Kurt Hahn, to create a “do-it-yourself kit in the art of civilised living”. The programme, operating in more than 140 countries, encourages young people to volunteer for community service and stretch themselves in teamwork and outdoor activities. Since the scheme’s beginnings, more than 4 million teenagers have participated, and the duke continued to present gold awards to the highest achievers into his 90s.
Prince Philip’s Death and the Last Embers of British Stoicism
Embattled but unlamenting throughout his life, Philip would have argued that a shield is required, whatever one’s situation, to fend off any sudden blows and to steel us for the slough of boredom.
By Anthony Lane
As Britain mourns Prince Philip, palace announced private funeral for April 17

22 March
Building Back Worse
Mariana Mazzucato , Laurie Macfarlane, George Dibb
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is clearly happy for the state to play a larger role in the economy. And yet, by scrapping a perfectly sensible industrial strategy for no good reason, it has all but ensured that the country’s economic problems will remain unsolved.
Chris Patten: The UK’s Hard Brexit Choices Have Arrived
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government recently spelled out how Britain will use its supposed freedom outside the European Union. But the country faces a growing number of tough choices that Johnson will not be able to avoid for much longer.
(Project Syndicate) … The UK government, for its part, has again deliberately breached the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU that Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed early last year. The UK has chosen to be outside the EU’s customs union and single market, while the Republic of Ireland (an EU member state) remains in both. So, the only way to avoid re-establishing a border between the Republic and Northern Ireland (which would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to the UK province) is for Northern Ireland to remain in the customs union with a border of some sort between it and the British mainland.Johnson signed up for this – something that his predecessor, Theresa May, refused to do – and then denied that there would be such a border.
Johnson signed up for this – something that his predecessor, Theresa May, refused to do – and then denied that there would be such a border. Now, his European minister, David Frost (who is to diplomacy what a chainsaw is to origami), has announced that the UK will ignore the Withdrawal Agreement until it gets what it wants.
So, what should have been a quiet period of nurturing post-Brexit UK-EU relations has turned into a barroom brawl. Meanwhile, Johnson’s government recently spelled out how the UK will use its supposed freedom outside the Union in a policy document that attempts to flesh out the concept of “Global Britain” – as if the country had not had global interests and influence for centuries.
It is an elegantly written essay, shot through with well-known Johnsonian traits. For example, it faithfully reflects his predilection for attempting to have his cake and eat it – and thus avoid hard choices. But with almost all serious economists and business leaders expecting slower economic growth for the foreseeable future (as a result of Britain having left its main export market), hard choices will not avoid the UK. It is not surprising that the government has not released an official projection of Brexit’s economic impact; if the figures were good, they would be published in bold.

8 March
Nicolas: Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry burst the Royal bubble
The British monarchy did not end with scandal; it thrived on scandal.
A Brit in America Makes Sense of the Meghan Markle Oprah Interview
By Hamish Bowles
(Vogue) I have found myself torn between two very different readings of this extraordinary couple: in America, a version of Meghan Markle as a self-actualized style maven with a female-empowerment platform who seemed to have brought her unhappy prince and his demons to a happy place. In Britain, a sense that she was a wily, shrewish manipulator (“Hurricane Meghan”) who snared her well-meaning but unwary prince; was dazzled by the idea of the job but discovered too late its dreary restrictive realities and its focus on blindly unquestioning obedience and embrace of duty; and stole him away to a distant land of self-love, self-realization, and humbug.

10 February
Brexit’s third act gets underway with a familiar plot line — Northern Ireland
The UK wants grace periods that allow lighter enforcement on EU rules in Northern Ireland to be extended until January 2023.
(Politico Eu)… bad blood has festered since the U.K. finally exited EU rules at the end of 2020 — notably over the Northern Ireland protocol, a key part of the deal that the European Commission came close to suspending last month in a bid to prevent vaccine supplies leaving the bloc. But officials insist that the relationship between Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove and his opposite number Maroš Šefčovič is significantly warmer than that between their predecessors David Frost and Michel Barnier.
Gove has demanded tweaks to the trade rules on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to deal with border disruption, and he wants waivers on post-Brexit checks to be extended for nearly two years.
That may be pushing it, but officials on the U.K. side view Šefčovič as someone they can do business with, in contrast to Barnier, who London frequently criticized as taking a robotic approach to the talks. The former Slovak diplomat is well-liked in London and is thought to be pragmatic and focused on doing the best for citizens on both sides. Awkwardly for him, he has his own deadline extension request — on the time limit for ratification of the Christmas Eve deal on the EU side.

11 January
Global Britain, Global Broker
A Blueprint for the UK’s Future International Role
Chatham House Director (and CEO) Dr Robin Niblett CMG sets out a proposed blueprint for Britain’s future foreign policy. Rather than reincarnate itself as a miniature great power, he argues that the country has the chance to remain internationally influential if it serves as the broker of solutions to global challenges.
The paper lays out six international goals for the UK that offer the best points of connection between its interests, resources and credibility. These are: protecting liberal democracy; promoting international peace and security; tackling climate change; enabling greater global health resilience; championing global tax transparency and equitable economic growth; and defending cyberspace.
In pursuit of these goals, the UK will need to invest in and leverage its unique combination of diplomatic reach, diverse security capabilities and prominence in international development. It should use these assets to link together liberal democracies and, where possible, engage alongside them with other countries that are willing to address shared international challenges constructively.

2 January
Boris Johnson would lose majority and seat in election tomorrow – poll
Results suggest public are deeply unhappy with the government’s handling of Covid and Brexit
(The Guardian) The poll predicts that if a general election were held tomorrow neither the Conservatives nor Labour would win an outright majority. Disturbingly for Boris Johnson, the survey says the Conservatives would lose 81 seats, wiping out the 80-seat majority they won in December 2019.
It gives the first detailed insight into the public’s perception of Johnson’s handling of the Brexit talks and the pandemic, amid fears that Britain is heading into a third national lockdown.

1 January
Britain Has Lost Itself
My grandparents, who fled Nazi Germany for Britain, would be heartbroken to see the country today.
By Peter Gumbel, author of “Citizens of Everywhere.”
(NYT) Inward, polarized and absurdly self-aggrandizing, Britain has lost itself. In sorrow, I mourn the passing of the country that was my family’s salvation.

2020

30 December
With little ado, a divided United Kingdom casts off into the Brexit unknown
(Reuters) -The United Kingdom left the European Union’s orbit on Thursday, turning its back on a tempestuous 48-year liaison with the European project for an uncertain post-Brexit future in its most significant geopolitical shift since the loss of empire.
5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks
Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.
(Politico Eu) I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.

29 December
Dire straits: The Rock faces a hard Brexit as Gibraltar talks drag on
Spanish foreign minister sends warning shot to London over post-Brexit Gibraltar.
The Spanish government is pushing for Gibraltar to join the passport-free Schengen zone, as first reported by POLITICO. The U.K. has accepted the idea of some sort of relationship between Gibraltar and Schengen, according to an official familiar with the talks, but is concerned about a potential loss of sovereignty as a result.

27 December
10 key details in the UK-EU trade deal
What the agreement says about financial services, state aid and more.
Now comes the scramble to work out what it means for individuals and businesses — and, inevitably, lawyers — across 28 countries. The deal itself is 1,246 pages long, but there are summaries, side agreements and additional political declarations on a range of sensitive issues to consider, too.
Shorthand comparisons are of little use. It’s not that helpful, experts say, to compare to deals struck between the European Union and Canada, for example, because the EU-U.K. agreement is unlike any other trade deal the bloc has struck with another country.

24 December
Boris Johnson hails free trade deal with EU
(BBC) The EU and UK have reached a post-Brexit trade deal, ending months of disagreements over fishing rights and future business rules.
At a Downing Street press conference, Boris Johnson said: “We have taken back control of our laws and our destiny.”
The text of the agreement has yet to be released, but the PM claimed it was a “good deal for the whole of Europe”.
The UK is set to exit EU trading rules next Thursday – a year after officially leaving the 27 nation bloc.
It will mean big changes for business, with the UK and EU forming two separate markets, and the end of free movement.
Brexit: What you need to know about the UK leaving the EU
(BBC) the UK and European Union finally agreed a deal that will define their future relationship.
Ever since the UK left the EU on 31 January, both sides have been talking about what the new rules should be.
The negotiations went to the wire, as the current arrangement ends on 31 December.
The deal contains new rules for how the UK and EU will live, work and trade together. But we don’t know a lot of the detail yet because the full document – expected to be well over 1,000 pages long – has not been released.
What we do know is that it means:
No taxes on each other’s goods when they cross borders (known as tariffs)
No limits on the amount of things which can be traded (known as quotas)

2 December
UK’s hopes of early US trade deal dashed by Biden warning
President-elect says his priority is to invest in US manufacturing and protect American workers
Britain’s hopes of securing an early trade deal with the US have been dashed by a warning from Joe Biden, the president-elect, that America will not sign a trade deal with anyone until the US has sorted out its competitiveness.
Britain had been closing in on a trade deal with the administration of Donald Trump, a fierce opponent of the European Union, but Biden has said in a New York Times interview that his priority will be to improve investment in US manufacturing and the protection of Amerian workers.
“I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers and in education,” he said.
Some supporters of Brexit had touted a US trade deal as one of the early benefits of leaving the EU and its customs union, although the economic value of such a deal had been questioned.

24 October
Johnson will wait for US election result before no-deal Brexit decision
Ivan Rogers, former UK ambassador to the EU, says prime minister will think ‘history was going his way’ if Donald Trump is re-elected
(The Guardian) Ivan Rogers, who was the UK’s permanent representative in Brussels from 2013 to 2017, told the Observer that a view shared by ministers and officials he has talked to in recent weeks in several European capitals, is that Johnson is biding his time – and is much more likely to opt for no deal if his friend and Brexit supporter Donald Trump prevails over the Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
Rogers said that if Trump won he and others in Europe believed Johnson would think “history was going his way” with his right-wing ally still in the White House. The prime minister would therefore be more likely to conclude he could strike a quick and substantial post-Brexit US-UK trade deal than if Biden emerged as president after the 3 November poll. By contrast, a Biden administration would prioritise rebuilding relations with the EU that have been damaged by Trump.
Rogers joined other former UK diplomats last night in warning that a Democratic administration under Biden would prove hugely problematic for Johnson and the UK government, threatening the so-called special relationship. “I don’t think either Biden or his core team are anti-British, but I think they are unimpressed by both Johnson and his top team,” he said.
Biden’s would simply not be an administration which viewed European integration as a negative.
“The UK’s absence from the EU will make it clearly less influential because it can no longer lead European thinking on the geo-strategic issues which will matter hugely to Biden. So [Biden] will put Berlin and Paris – and indeed Brussels – back at the heart of US thinking: not uncritically, because the US will still have serious issues with EU approaches on economic and security issues..”

19 October
UK refuses to restart Brexit talks despite EU accepting its demands
No 10 unmoved even after Barnier’s offer prompts Gove to make U-turn at dispatch box
(The Guardian) A No 10 spokesman said the prime minister had noted the EU’s offer to “intensify” the talks during a call between Barnier and his British counterpart on Monday but insisted there remained no basis yet to resume the negotiation.
The spokesman said: “This was a constructive discussion. The UK has noted the EU’s proposal to genuinely intensify talks, which is what would be expected at this stage in a negotiation. However, the UK continues to believe there is no basis to resume talks unless there is a fundamental change of approach from the EU.
“This means an EU approach consistent with trying to find an agreement between sovereign equals and with acceptance that movement needs to come from the EU side as well as the UK. The two teams agreed to remain in close touch.”
The knockback means the Brexit standoff continues, with just four weeks left in which worthwhile negotiations may be conducted in pursuit of a comprehensive trade deal before the parliamentary ratification process will need to begin.

14 October
Letter from the U.K.
How the Second Wave of the Pandemic Has Challenged Boris Johnson’s Leadership
The coronavirus has been merciless in its exposure of Johnson’s limits as a politician and of his government as a whole.
(The New Yorker) Six months into the pandemic, the British government’s handling of COVID-19 is not dissimilar to what it was in the spring. A lot has happened, to be sure. At least fifty-seven thousand three hundred and forty-seven people have died of the disease; the economy has cratered. But the over-all strategy for dealing with the virus remains late, oddly complicated, and undermined by a dull, nagging incompetence. An hour after Johnson finished a televised address alongside Britain’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, to explain the virtues of the new tiered system, officials quietly released minutes from the country’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a panel of independent scientists that has been guiding the government throughout the crisis. The minutes showed that the critical moment to prevent Britain’s second wave has probably already passed.