This hit some in Brussels as wealthy, as last September, Johnson threatened to annul Britain’s historic treaty with the European Union, in violation of international law, if the two sides were unable to reach a trade agreement.
At home, the prime minister wasted no time in dealing with the vaccine issue as a club against his political rivals. On Wednesday, in the House of Commons, Johnson scoffed at Labor Party leader Keir Starmer for saying he wished Britain had stayed at the European Medicines Agency, which has been slower to approve vaccines than the regulator Britain’s health care system.
Starmer considered the claim “absurd” before admitting later that he once said that it would be better for Britain to remain under European regulators (although he noted that this was not his party’s position).
Britain, legal experts noted, would have the authority to approve vaccines just as quickly, even if it were still in the European Union, although it had less political freedom to act alone.
Still, it was a detrimental withdrawal for Starmer, who set off the alarm in the Labor Party ranks. Johnson’s Conservative Party maintained a modest leadership in Labor polls, despite the way its government handled the pandemic, which was marked by delays, reversals and contradictory messages.
Britain recently exceeded 100,000 deaths, the highest number of deaths in any European country. For now, however, voters seem more focused on launching the vaccine, which reached a milestone this week of 10 million people receiving their first doses.
While much of the credit for rapid distribution should go to Britain’s National Health Service, according to experts, it is also a tribute to the government’s initial investment in promising vaccines, such as that produced by Oxford and AstraZeneca.