LONDON – Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s political fortunes have been revived by a rapid rollout of Britain’s coronavirus vaccine. Now, Mr Johnson’s allies hope that the apparent disparity between Britain’s performance and that of the European Union will make something even more challenging: justify their big Brexit project.
Pro-Brexit politicians and critics are casting Britain’s vaccine deployment, ranked among the fastest in the world, as an example of risk-taking and entrepreneurial emergence that does not exclude the collective decision-making work of 27 member countries. European Union.
With a fraction of Britain’s vaccination rates, the threat of an export ban on continental vaccines and scattered statements by leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron about British-made vaccines, the European Union has made every effort to show that it is appropriate.
“This is the first serious examination by the UK state since Brexit,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent who studies British rights. “Boris Johnson’s vaccine is going to take a dividend, and it will give him a whole new story for the summer and beyond.”
This is a story of Britain trying to divert attention from the cost of Brexit after it seceded from the European Union in January – a hurdle to cross-channel trade and a red tape trend, among other headaches. Many Britons simply ignored the traumatic experience with the virus before the first vaccine “Jabs” arrived last December.
Until then, Mr Johnson’s government was primarily known for its annoying and erratic response to the epidemic – tardy lockdowns, repeated policy violations, messed up public messages and a vague test-and-trace system – all of which contributed the most deaths in Britain. Toll in Europe.
The chaos has tarnished the Conservative Party’s reputation for legitimacy and left some questioning whether Mr Johnson, who survived his Covid-19 feud last April, will be able to survive politically until the next general election scheduled for 2024.
Now, however, the PM’s approval ratings have improved, largely due to public enthusiasm for the vaccine rollout.
According to a new survey conducted by Ipsos Mori for the EU-UK Forum, an organization that promotes cross-channel dialogue, sixty per cent of those surveyed said they think Britain has outperformed EU countries in terms of vaccination. Only 12 per cent said they thought Britain had performed poorly while 14 per cent thought the two had handled things well.
For his initial stumbling block, Kelly Beaver, managing director of public affairs at Ipsos Mori, said: “The British people think that the government has done a better job than its EU counterparts, the effectiveness of the vaccination program, no doubt. To date, it has been incredibly successful. “
Importantly, a small majority of those surveyed – one percent said they believe Brexit has helped improve Britain’s epidemic control, while 1 percent said it made it worse, and 38 percent thought it did. It made no difference.
Overall, the survey shows that the emotional power over Brexit has somewhat diminished, although the majority expects food prices to rise and make the European holidays more difficult. And Britain remains sharply divided, not only over EU membership, but also over other issues such as crime, British values and political purity.
Mr Johnson’s vaccine bounce could be short-lived if a new type emerges or the economy does not recover quickly, analysts say.
But Mr Goodwin said one consequence of the vaccine’s success is that there are signs of a significant number of people reconsidering Brexit’s wisdom or suffering severe regrets – or as he puts it, “Briggs” – some of which are to be expected.
The disruption of post-Brexit trade by the British media, which has stimulated exports of some British food and seafood and left supermarket shelves empty in Northern Ireland, has given more than 28 million people insightful coverage.
The task of identifying the negative effects of Brexit from the months-long shutdown of most of Britain’s economy will also be complicated, as they are lost in a sea of red ink. Long before the epidemic, economists predicted that the biggest cost of Brexit would be to weaken economic expansion, which would combine almost vaguely for many years, rather than give an accidental shock.
In any case, the vaccine rollout has helped the government make a separate and distinct argument for Brexit, emphasizing responsibility and accountability for economic costs or benefits.
David Frost, a former diplomat who negotiated a Brexit trade deal for Mr Johnson and is now a cabinet minister, clarified the case earlier this month when he said Britain’s membership of the European Union had taken the initiative. Institutional paralysis. ”
Britain faced problems that we found difficult to call a willingness to compromise, and I think there is a kind of flow quality in our ability to make decisions in EU membership, ”he said at the research institute, Policy Exchange.
Mr Brest added: “Brexit does not solve those problems, but it does mean that we can solve them, move forward, get a grip, but also improve our attitude and become a country that can face problems again. ”
Britain, officials said, had put several vaccine candidates at risk and aggressively locked supplies in advance – they say the European Union’s ploy was clearly lacking in its approach to risk.
But critics argue that Britain could do more to do what it did as an active member of the European Union. The British medical regulator always had the right to approve vaccines on an emergency basis, faster than the rest of the bloc – as it was last December – and the government always had the freedom to buy doses from blush, like some other EU. Countries have since.
The critics said the strength of Britain’s rollout lies in its strong scientific establishment, which developed the Astrakhan-University of the Rxford vaccine, and its extensive national health service, which delivers doses. None of them were strengthened by leaving the European Union.
Britain cut its deal with the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca, at the center of its confrontation with the European Union, which was slow to make such a purchase. Brussels has accused the company of providing preferential treatment to Britain at the expense of Britain.
European leaders will weigh in on the plan to temporarily suspend vaccine exports as a means of seeking exchange with Britain and other countries and that could leave Britain – and Mr Johnson – badly exposed. The country relies heavily on vaccines produced in factories in Belgium and other European countries to continue the pace of its inoculation.
“What is changing in Brexit is Britain’s ability to secure foreign parts of its supply chains,” said Mark Malcolm Brown, a diplomat and former Labor government minister who chaired the anti-Brexit group, BEST for Britain. “The crisis, seen from the other end, reveals Britain’s weakness.”
Britain’s dependence on the European Union goes beyond a steady supply of vaccines. It is Britain’s largest trading partner by far, and has links to security and law enforcement. Mr Johnson himself has refrained from using blatantly provocative language against Brussels, citing the rapid deterioration in relations since Britain officially confronted him in January.
Jonathan Powell, who serves as Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff, said: “I’m concerned that Brexit is going so far as to prove that it is a good thing. . “The next time we need something, it’s going to hit us.”
