Europe’s press waved goodbye to Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister resigned today, delighting in the downfall of a man who finally got Britain out of the EU.
‘Europe says goodbye to Boris Johnson without tears or sorrow,’ was the headline in Spain’s El Mundo, which said that ‘no one is going to cry’ for an ‘unscrupulous leader’ who ‘has left not a single friend or admirer’.
La Vanguardia, the main newspaper of Barcelona, recounted ‘eight months of heart-attack’ for the Tories since Partygate allegations first came to light – saying ‘scandal and controversy’ were the ‘tonic in Boris Johnson’s political life’.
Writing from Berlin, Tagesspiegel described Mr Johnson as a ‘scandal noodle’ and said those who have followed his career closely ‘are hardly surprised’ by the scandals that have followed him ‘for months and years’ but proved ‘too much this time’.
Germany’s main tabloid newspaper Bild wrote simply: ‘Bye bye, Boris.’
Faced with accumulating scandals, a raft of resignations, and outright demands from his own cabinet to step aside, Mr Johnson defiantly clung to power through a day of extraordinary political drama on Wednesday.
But, come Thursday morning as analysts began to talk of a ‘constitutional crisis’, the Prime Minister agreed to fall on his sword.
Pablo Suanzes, Brussels correspondent for one of Spain’s largest papers, was among the first to react – saying the Prime Minister ‘has done nothing but accumulate firewood and light matches’ since taking power almost three years ago.
‘Smarter, more dangerous and less trustworthy’ than predecessor Theresa May, Mr Suanzes sums up two years of relations between the EU and UK under Boris as ‘a collection of deceptions, lies, vagueness, delays, lies and provocations’.
‘In Brussels the reaction [to his resignation] is almost indifference,’ he says. ‘There is little guilty pleasure in the downfall, without honor, of an unscrupulous leader.
‘He has left not a single friend, a single admirer or almost a single supporter, for himself, but almost also for the United Kingdom.’
Spain’s largest newspaper, El Pais, said Mr Johnson ‘has thrown in the towel’ and will resign ‘plagued by mismanagement of several scandals in the ranks of his party, in which he himself has been involved.’
Source : Daily Mail
