Britain's political and economic turmoil has been greeted with thinly disguised satisfaction by pro-European and left-wing politicians abroad, with some commentators drawing parallels with chaotic Italy.
New British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt unveiled new tax and spending measures yesterday, two weeks earlier than planned, in an attempt to improve the situation after a dramatic loss of investor confidence in the government of Prime Minister Liz Truss.
"How's Brexit going," veteran Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt announced on Twitter. "One thing is certain: the chaos did not start in 2022 but in 2016," he added, referring to the British referendum to leave the EU.
Similar remarks were made by the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who criticized the original proposals of the Prime Minister of Bitania on tax reduction. "The neoliberal path has failed in previous financial crises, causing great suffering and will again lead to the ruin of those who follow it - as we had the opportunity to see in the United Kingdom," he said in the Spanish parliament.
Outside Europe, US President Joe Biden said that the British plan to reduce tax rates for those with the highest incomes is a "mistake". Biden, a Democrat, often criticizes the economic policy of conservatives who are associated in the US with former President Ronald Reagan and the Republicans, Reuters points out.
"I do not agree with the idea of reducing taxes on huge wealth," he told reporters on Saturday.
Even the British conservative newspaper The Telegraph, which supported Brexit, admitted in an editorial on Sunday that the economic goals had failed. "Britain's transformation into the new Italy is almost complete," read the headline of the article, which drew numerous parallels between the two countries' economic decline and political instability.
Britain has had four prime ministers in the past six years, which, according to Reuters, is a new trend of governments changing like on a conveyor belt, similar to the one in Rome.
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