"'The English are a worn-out people. They need to regenerate themselves.'
French president Charles de Gaulle said that 55 years ago to one of his ministers. He also vetoed Britain joining the European Common Market, the predecessor of the European Union. And he vetoed Britain not once, but three times from 1958 to 1963.
After De Gaulle died, the French relented and Britain joined the Common Market in 1973.
Forty-five years later, the English want out, not in. They said so in a referendum in 2016. (The Scots and the Irish of Northern Ireland voted in favour of staying in the EU.) But three years of raucous wrangling over the terms of withdrawal have left the English political class exactly where De Gaulle found them – worn out and in need of regeneration.
Enter Boris Johnson, the man who, according to his sister, wanted, as a child, to be 'world king.' Like his hero Winston Churchill, he aspires to be a man of destiny. Johnson wrote a biography of Churchill that reviewers said read like a self-congratulatory autobiography.
Now, in an echo of Churchill, Johnson has exhorted his parliamentary troops into battle — England again alone against Europe. Britain must leave the European Union on Oct. 31, even without a deal.
But unlike Churchill in 1940, Johnson does not lead a government of national unity. In fact, as of Sept. 3, he doesn't even have a majority in the House of Commons. More than 20 of his own MPs deserted him.
That led to humiliation – his government lost the first three votes with him as prime minister, a new and dubious record."
"He is the pure product of the British elite. There is the buffoon ... and the liar, who didn't hesitate to base his 2016 Brexit campaign on fallacious arguments. There is the dilettante. There is the polite and courteous statesman we saw at the G7 summit. And there is the populist, cynical and brutal prime minister, ready to do anything, including forcing the Queen to suspend parliamentary democracy to achieve his ends."