Europe reacts to ex-PM’s downfall
BRUSSELS – As Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Mayor of London, as an editor and as correspondent in Brussels, Boris Johnson delighted in insulting fellow Europeans. In Europe, his clownish approach to serious issues was always seen as tedious and disruptive, and the response to his downfall and disgrace has been one of disapproval.
Analysing Thursday’s report alleging Mr Johnson deliberately misled the Commons over lockdown parties, European media noted that it captured the former Prime Minister’s ego and casual relationship with the truth.
German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quipped that one doesn’t have to be a connoisseur of antiquity like Mr Johnson to know the parable of Hercules at the crossroads, the choice between vice and virtue. “Johnson has never stood at such a moral crossroads,” wrote FAZ’s London correspondent Gina Thomas. “For him, there was not even a middle way, but always only the shortest, all-destructive way to an end.”
Mathieu von Rohr from German magazine Der Spiegel compared Mr Johnson to former US President Donald Trump, who has also fallen from grace after being caught trying to bend the rules. “Trump and Johnson were always similar in one thing: they both represented the populism of a narcissistic leader. It is no wonder that such figures tend to overestimate themselves and believe themselves above the law. And that they then also fall on their faces,” he wrote.
French centre-left daily Liberation said that with the vice gradually tightening, Mr Johnson tried to flee the inevitable. “By leaving the British Parliament, the former Prime Minister is not only fleeing a humiliating sanction: he also gives himself full latitude to attack Rishi Sunak, the man who pushed him to resign last summer,” wrote London correspondent Juliette Démas.
Italy’s Corriere della Sera wondered what happens now. “Game over for Boris Johnson? Or rather the beginning of another of his reincarnations?” asked UK correspondent Luigi Ippolito, who doubted he would pull off a comeback despite his undoubted appeal to some Conservatives. “The general public is tired of him: Johnson, in his three years as prime minister, has demonstrated his ineptitude to govern, his mendacity and his disregard for rules,” he wrote.
Austrian newspaper Der Standard opined that Britain will be better with him gone. “Johnson has no qualms about telling outright lies. Populist slogans replaced serious politics… and there is his complete contempt for all political convention… British politics will be more boring without Boris Johnson. But the air around Westminster is suddenly much better to breathe.”
Denmark’s Politiken said Mr Johnson’s resignation before the report’s publication was all too characteristic. “He is not the type of politician to politely let the course of events shape his destiny. He pushes things to create opportunities. He acts,” wrote correspondent Nilas Heinskou.
