Germany Blames ‘Silver Spoon’ U.K. Elite for Brexit Chaos
European exasperation over the chaos in Brexit talks descended into profanity and name-calling.
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European exasperation over the chaos in Brexit talks descended into profanity and name-calling, as Germany’s deputy foreign minister said the U.K. government consists mostly of clueless boarding-school graduates.
“Brexit is a big shitshow, I say that now very undiplomatically,” Michael Roth said at an event of his Social Democratic Party in Berlin on Saturday. He accused “90 percent” of the British cabinet of having “no idea how workers think, live, work and behave” and said it would not be those U.K. politicians “born with silver spoons in their mouths, who went to private schools and elite universities” that will suffer the consequences of the mess.
“I don’t know if William Shakespeare could have come up with such a tragedy but who will foot the bill?,” the German diplomat said. His comments come just days after hard-Brexit champion Jacob Rees-Mogg, who attended Eton College and studied at Oxford University, derided a fellow Conservative lawmaker for having graduated from Winchester College during a crunch debate over the country’s withdrawal from the EU.
Roth’s main message on Saturday was an appeal to voters to reject populism in the May European Union Parliament election. He called for a coalition of democrats and pro-Europeans to fight back against nationalist forces on the rise in the bloc.
“Europe is a life insurance in times of crisis and Europe brings the opportunity to cross borders, destroy walls, bring people together and foster solidarity,” Roth said. “We are seeing these days how fragile that is, and how little we can take that for granted. When people give themselves up to nationalists and populists, they are betrayed.”
Populist Agenda
His comments were echoed by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats and a likely successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“It should be clear to everyone what happens when populists can set the agenda,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper published Saturday. “There are also parties in Germany that support leaving the EU. Everyone can see in the example of Britain what consequences that would have.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Rogers in Berlin at irogers11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Nikos Chrysoloras, Rene Vollgraaff
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