It's about Brexit after all.
 | By Max Strasser International Editor, Opinion |
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I don’t have much in common with Boris Johnson. Our accents, our upbringing and our politics are, it’s safe to say, pretty divergent. But on at least one matter, I can relate to the prime minister: I thought Brexit would take up a lot more of my attention this year. |
As the London-based international editor for Opinion, I spent much of the past two years tracking negotiations between London and Brussels, votes in Westminster, and a general election largely focused on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Month after month, I recalled the headline of Tanya Gold’s December 2018 Op-Ed: “Another Day in Brexit Hell.” I thought there would be a few more. Johnson, for his part, expected that 2020 would be defined by fulfilling his campaign pledge (maybe it’s more accurate to say his whole platform) to “get Brexit done.” |
And then along came the pandemic. |
Britain has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Close to 43,000 people have died, the third highest death toll in the world. There are undoubtedly a number of factors that led to this tragedy, but one of them was the Johnson government’s reluctance to put Britain under a lockdown, even as other countries in Europe did so. |
It turns out that was about Brexit after all. |
“The fantasies behind Brexit — of national captivity and liberation, confinement and freedom — have propelled Britain toward its current calamity,” Samuel Earle writes in an Op-Ed today. Sam, a British political journalist, pinpoints the ideology at the heart of this government, a self-destructive pursuit of “freedom” at any cost, “a mind-set that, at root, doesn’t like being told what to do.” It’s one of those pieces that helps readers around the world make sense of the big ideas beneath the headlines. |
The only countries with more deaths from Covid-19 are the United States and Brazil. The situation in each of the three countries is, of course, unique: In Britain, infections appear to have peaked for now, while in Brazil they still seem to be increasing, and in the United States they have reached a horrifying plateau. (Our columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote on Monday about what this shows about America’s dysfunction and the Editorial Board wrote yesterday about President Trump’s dangerous “magical thinking” and obsession with keeping the numbers down.) |
But what Brazil, America and Britain have in common is that each country is led by its own brand of right-wing populist. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. |
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