SHARE
COPY LINK

EUROPEAN UNION

‘He looks like a man who slept in his car’: What is the Danish media saying about Boris Johnson?

Boris Johnson will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after his victory in the Conservative Party leadership contest was confirmed on Tuesday.

'He looks like a man who slept in his car': What is the Danish media saying about Boris Johnson?
Boris Johnson is likely to become the next British PM. Photo: Niklas Hallen / AFP / Ritzau Scanpix

Johnson had long been the firm favourite to win the Tory leadership race ahead of Jeremy Hunt, and will take over as the head of the UK's government on Wednesday.

He faces an awkward relationship with Europe – and not just because he reportedly called the French “turds” over Brexit.

As Johnson prepares to enter 10 Downing Street, Danish commentators have noted the apparent dead-end British politics finds itself in regarding the EU withdrawal and commented on whether Johnson is capable of resolving it.

The former London mayor has promised to seek a new deal with the EU or leave without an agreement on October 31st, the current scheduled withdrawal date, in what would be a ‘no-deal' Brexit.

But the British parliament has so far refused to countenance that scenario, and has on three occasions rejected a withdrawal deal reached between outgoing PM Theresa May and the EU.

Johnson claims he can land a new deal which can pass parliament, but the EU has consistently said the agreement is final and cannot be reopened for further negotiations.

“The deadlocked situation in parliament means that Johnson could easily be forced to call a new election as soon as next year. He must therefore simultaneously prepare brinkmanship negotiations with (the UK’s) by-far most important trade partner [the EU, ed.], fight a seething opposition inside and outside of his party and also prepare an election campaign,” writes Politiken’s EU correspondent Nilas Heinskou.

“With Boris Johnson at the helm, British politics could, incredibly, become even more unpredictable and chaotic,” Heinskou writes.

Danish public service broadcaster DR, in an article published earlier this month, described Johnson as a politician who “very much splits opinion”.

“The politician with the yellow haystack on his head has made enough gaffes throughout his career for newspapers to make list articles about it,” DR writes.

The broadcaster’s political analyst Kim Bildsøe noted Johnson’s skill with rhetoric in a country deeply split over Brexit.

“When you look at where the British are right now, I think they need someone who can tell that story [about what Brexit is supposed to achieve, ed.]. There are so many other things that seem hopeless and difficult,” Bildsøe said.

As such, he has made Brexit his selling point, despite there being “large holes” in his plan, DR writes.

“Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan has a lot of things, but detail is not one of them,” Bildsøe said.

Conservative daily Berlingske published on Monday evening an article which focused on last week’s reports that a meeting between a Johnson representative and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier had gone “worse than even the worst of expectations.”

In the article, which also rounds up British reports on the incoming PM’s career and personal life, the newspaper’s foreign correspondent Poul Høi refers to Johnson’s route to the British premiership and his disorganised style.

“What does he want? He has not obtained power with a public mandate, but through an effective background campaign in a desolate Conservative Party; and has won a majority amongst primarily older, white, male party members by promising them the hardest imaginable Brexit,” Høi writes.

“Johnson’s personal style and hard Brexit line has resulted in many experts placing him in a global Trump-Salvini-Orbán-Bolsonaro, axis which shares (the concepts of) post-truth and shamelessness,” Høi writes, paraphrasing and citing Alastair Campbell, the former advisor to Tony Blair.

“He looks like a man who has slept in his car, with his crumpled jacket, messy blonde hair and general disorder, and that’s his style,” Høi also writes.

READ ALSO: Fewer Brits visit Denmark since Brexit vote, reversing previous trend

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

BREXIT

REVEALED: Thousands of Britons still moving to EU countries despite Brexit

More than 42,000 British citizens moved to EU countries in 2023, with the largest groups recorded in Spain, France and Germany, according to data published recently by the EU statistical office Eurostat.

REVEALED: Thousands of Britons still moving to EU countries despite Brexit

The data refers to the number of first-time residence permits being issued last year.

It’s defined as “any authorisation issued by the authorities of an EU country allowing a third-country national (non-EU citizen) to stay legally on its territory”.

Based on information provided by national authorities to the EU statistical office, 42,029 first-time residence permits were issued to UK citizens in 2023, a slight drop compared to the 45,794 in 2022.

The largest proportion of these permits were issued for employment reasons(13,423), followed by family reunions (11,074), “other reasons” (10,961), and then education (6,571). “Other reasons” include any option not covered by the other three, from retirement to international protection.

Spain and France the most popular

Spain is the country that issued the largest number of new residence permits to UK citizens (10,166), but only 1,266 were because of jobs. Most of the first-time permits (3,768) were issued for ‘other reasons’, followed by family (3,311) and education purposes (1,821).

The recent news that a British football coach was denied a dream move to Real Madrid due to work permit rules showed that Britons can’t move to Spain so easily after Brexit especially for employment reasons.

The coach found out the hard way that getting a work permit to live in Spain is now quite tricky, especially for young Brits, who will need to prove that they’re highly skilled while employers must demonstrate that there are no other suitable candidates.

To give some perspective, although the data is not exactly comparable, Eurostat’s immigration data show that some 23,900 British citizens moved to Spain alone in 2018, and over 33,900 in 2019 – so prior to Brexit.

READ ALSO: The reasons why Brits are moving to Spain post-Brexit

France followed, with 8,114 first residence permits granted to UK nationals (although France’s Interior Ministry released figures earlier this year that revealed a slightly higher number of Brits – 9,261 – had been given residency permits in 2023).

The largest proportion of permits received by Brits in France was for employment reasons (3,649), coming before education (1,798), other reasons (1,666) and family reunions (1,001).

READ ALSO: Thousands of Brits move to France despite post-Brexit hurdles

Germany reported 4,584 first residence permits to UK citizens in 2023, of which 1,765 for work, 1,468 for other reasons, 882 for family reunions and 469 for education.

READ ALSO: The reasons Brits are moving to Germany post-Brexit

The other two most popular countries for British nationals in 2023 were the Netherlands (3,750 first residence permits of which 1,713 for employment) and Portugal (2,565 of which 1,144 for other reasons).

Italy reported 2,177 first residence permits for UK citizens, of which 1,124 for other reasons 621 to join family, 278 for employment and 154 for education.

For Denmark, the total was 1,852, but the majority (1,264) were for work purposes, 280 to join family, 243 for education and 65 other reasons.

Sweden issued 1,632 first residence permits to British nationals, mostly for family reasons (710), followed by employment (474), education (247), and other reasons (201).

Austria reported 529 first residence permits to UK citizens, of which 201 for employment, 191 for family reasons, 70 for education, and 67 for other purposes.

Outside of the EU, but part of the free movement area, Norway registered 1,736 new residence permits to UK nationals, of which 1,033 for employment, 366 to join family, 146 for education, and 201 for other reasons.

In Norway, Britons were the third nationality for first residence permits and in Bulgaria the fourth, although the number of UK citizens moving to Central and Eastern Europe is much lower than in Western Europe.

The Eurostat database does not yet include 2023 data for Switzerland.

Data on first-time residence permits gives a general indication on the number of people who moved to EU countries in a given year, although Eurostat told The Local that “the date of issuance of a permit does not necessarily mean the physical movement of the person on that date, as non-EU citizens might have already temporarily resided on the basis of e.g. short stay visa” or due to irregular stays.

More than 3.7 million first residence permits

In total, in 2023 EU countries reported the granting of more than 3.7 million first residence permits, a 4.7 percent increase compared to 2022, and the highest number ever recorded.

Employment remained the main reason (1.3 million or 33.8%), followed by family (986,000 or 26.4% of the total), other purposes (956,000 or 25.6%) and education (185,900 or 14.3%). The increase compared to 2022 was due to permits issued for education, family reunification and other reasons, while those for employment slightly declined.

The top 10 nationalities receiving these permits were Ukraine, Belarus, India, Morocco, Syria, Türkiye, Russia, China, Brazil and Afghanistan.

Poland issued the largest number of first residence permits in the EU (642,789), followed by Germany (586,144), Spain (548,697), Italy (389,542) and France (335,074).

SHOW COMMENTS