View from Switzerland: Britain Is the ‘Laughing Stock of Europe’

SWISSINFO.CH: “What on earth has happened to Britain?” The astonished writer of a scathing Swiss newspaper editorial has tried to work out how the United Kingdom has gone in two years from a “respected actor on the international stage” to its “current chaos”.

“If the situation in Britain weren’t so serious, it would all be hilarious,” began the article in Zurich’s Tages-Anzeiger and Bern’s Der Bund on Monday – the day talks started between negotiators from London and Brussels on Britain leaving the European Union.

There were two main reasons for the country’s reversal of fortune, the author proposed: the Conservative party’s “obsessive hatred” of the EU, and the irresponsibility of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the June 2016 referendum on Brexit “and put the country’s future at stake in order to placate a few fanatics in his party”.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear what an extraordinarily bad decision that was. The fact that Britain has become the laughing stock of Europe is directly linked to the vote in favour of Brexit,” the editorialist wrote. » | Thomas Stephens | Monday, June 19, 2017