The world has been watching the political and economic upheaval in the UK over the past few weeks. The havoc caused by Prime Minister Liz Truss’s tax-cutting plan, followed by its withdrawal this week, made headlines around the globe. Even US President Joe Biden waded in, breaking diplomatic norms in doing so.
But what impact has it really had outside the UK? BBC reporters from Berlin to Washington explain how it’s being viewed where they are and what’s changed.
For many in Berlin, the drama in Westminster is viewed – with some sadness – as just the latest episode in the political and economic upheaval which many Germans suspected would be the inevitable consequence of Brexit.
Neither Chancellor Olaf Scholz nor his ministers have commented publicly on the mini-budget or its repercussions. But columnists have been scathing in their assessment; the selection of Liz Truss, said one, was a “fatal choice” made by the Conservatives who ignored warnings about her policy.
Another expressed incredulity that MPs were plotting to replace the beleaguered prime minister without a general election, warning that such a “coup” risked turning Britain into a “Banana Republic”.
There was a time when some German politicians would tell me of their admiration for British politics, for the cut and thrust of a system which seemed far more exciting than the compromise-driven, coalition-based German model. It’s an opinion few hold now.
