Chronic. “Global Britain” scores points. The post-Brexit UK is teaching the rest of Europe lessons. Boris Johnson’s conservative government is on the way to successfully completing the vaccine phase in the fight against Covid-19. In the inevitable image battle – better inside or better outside? – triggered by the departure of the British from the European Union (EU), London pockets a set. Even if Wimbledon (June 28-July 11) should be held in empty bleachers.
Under the cumulative shocks of Brexit and the pandemic, the economic and social situation is difficult. National wealth contraction of around 10% in 2020, loss of export markets, degradation of the City of London’s status and infernal border bureaucracy: Brexit is nothing like the “Release” promised by her thurifarians. But Johnson, it’s fair to say, can argue that the Oxford-AstraZeneca combination produced a vaccine. In the United Kingdom, the university-private company relationship is celebrated – not denigrated as too often in France. More than 20 million Britons have already been vaccinated: we will refrain from comparisons.
This does not make us forget the beginning of catastrophic crisis management and some 120,000 deaths. But this battle against Covid-19 is the first exercise of a proud and proud loneliness found on the international scene. After forty-seven years of living together with other Europeans, the British are finally “alone” as in the days of the Empire. For, in the components of the Brexit vote, there was, among other motivations, the nostalgia for a past greatness, the cult of a lost British exceptionalism and the quest for a unique role throughout the wide world.
How to maintain a “global” influence?
“Global Britain”: does that mean Britain alone in foreign policy? The question is at the heart of two recently published books which examine the underlying motives of Brexit. Former French Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Sylvie Bermann tells the story of a political adventure where lies, particularly those of Boris Johnson, and illusionism played a key role – Good-bye Britannia. The UK challenged by Brexit (Stock, 254 p., € 19.50). Featured Commentator on Financial Times, Philip Stephens retraces the stages of an identity crisis that has always started again – Britain Alone. The Path from Suez to Brexit (Faber, 480 p., £ 25, untranslated).
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