Roland Kelts: ‘Seen from Japan, Britain is no longer recognisably British’

A nation of islands shaped by limited space and imperial ambitions, garden aesthetics and ceremonial teas – and stoic, stiff-lipped reserve in the face of adversity: Great Britain, or Japan?

For many Japanese, Britain has long been something of a western mirror and model nation, a land whose geographical and cultural character were recognisable and achievements often admirable: a doppelganger off the coast of another continent and equally rich with tradition, history and parochial pride. At least, until Brexit.

Only three months after the June 2016 EU referendum, the Japanese government voiced its displeasure over Britain’s choice in unusually un-Japanese language. A 15-page memorandum issued in September 2016 by the otherwise soft-spoken ministry of foreign affairs “strongly requests” that the UK consider the facts: Japan invests a lot of money and employs a lot of workers in the UK, but Japanese businesses can’t and won’t stay in the UK if it exits the EU without the single passport and sustained immigration. In other words: with no deal. Three years later, Japan is still pleading the case. This June, the foreign minister, Taro Kono, said that he bluntly told Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt: “’Please no no deal. Please no no-deal Brexit.’”

Since then, Johnson has made a no-deal Brexit seem like a no-brainer – a fait accompli for Brexit cheerleaders.

“I think most Japanese look at Britain today with disbelief, shock and horror,” Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Tokyo’s Sophia University told me recently. “There are quite a few of us who are Anglophiles, but the Britain a lot of Japanese came to like and admire is open, cosmopolitan and increasingly integrated in Europe. The fact that Britain is inflicting on itself tremendous economic damage for what seems like a very un-British extremist ideology is astounding.”

Seen from the relatively stable shores of Japan, its western mirror image is not only cracking up – it’s no longer recognisably British.

• Roland Kelts is a Japanese-American writer and author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US. He lives in Tokyo

Sarah Jones: ‘For the US, the UK once had a social welfare model to which we could aspire’

No one would mistake the UK for an egalitarian country. Ruled perpetually by the products of Oxbridge, it is propelled towards Brexit in part by its own xenophobia.

But American soil provides no moral high ground. Donald Trump is president, children are dying in our border camps and the cruelty that kills them is the same force that wears our social safety net threadbare. Americans with diabetes are dying, too, because they can’t afford insulin – an unlikely outcome in a country with a healthcare system like the NHS. Viewed from across the Atlantic, the UK never looked like utopia – but it did look like a model to which we could aspire. Its commitments to its working class were at least tangible. Here, the absence kills.

With Boris Johnson in power, and a no-deal Brexit looming and all the domestic chaos it promises, there’s a sense that Britain is dangling one foot over the edge of a precipice, and it can’t easily return to safety. Since becoming prime minister Johnson has promised “new money” for the NHS – but is it enough to heal a system that bleeds from a thousand cuts? We hear stories of proposed tax cuts that would raise incomes for the rich, while British children are going hungry. It’s a tragic moment for a nation whose social welfare programmes once inspired admiration.

• Sarah Jones is a staff writer for New York Magazine, where she covers national politics and social inequality

Jan Fleischhauer: ‘To Germany, British democracy looks like a child always shouting no’

What haven’t I read about Boris Johnson? He is a charlatan, a huckster, a notorious liar. One newspaper wrote that Johnson was the British version of Donald Trump – albeit a “baby Trump”.

The reaction of most German media to the emergence of Johnson isn’t much different to how he is viewed on the liberal left in Britain. Angela Merkel looks at him with the amused interest of a seasoned world leader who has already experienced a lot in her career, just as one looks at a rare beetle. I must admit I see him slightly differently: I have a weakness for politicians who write books without the help of a ghostwriter, to start with – call it a deformation professionnelle. And I have a fondness for anyone who retains a healthy sense of the comic abyss in political business.

But the most important thing is that Johnson seems to have a plan, of sorts. You can find this plan dangerous or ruthless, but at least he appears to now know what he wants – and a no-deal Brexit is something that would happen, however devastating the costs might be. The amassed opposition in parliament, which feels duped by him, on the other hand, is beginning to appear ridiculous.

Those who can only say what they don’t want, but never what they would like instead, cannot be taken seriously in politics. In Germany and the rest of Europe we have looked on in confusion while the revered British democracy voted itself to exhaustion without finding a solution – it is not staying in the EU, it is not backing a deal, it’s against no deal... Eventually it’s like a child throwing itself on the floor and always shouting “no”. For the reputation of the British, this infantile regression is a thousand times more devastating than any appearance by the new prime minister.

• Jan Fleischhauer is a columnist with Focus Magazine

Pauline Bock: ‘For France, the way the UK is rushing towards no deal is mesmerising’

Really, it would be easier if you abandoned this project of yours. France is watching UK politics with bewilderment and disillusionment, and is now treating no deal as the most likely scenario. In Paris, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, repeated to Boris Johnson – again – that the backstop is “indispensable”.

France has considered no deal a very real possibility since the beginning of the year, preparing laws and contingency plans for this eventuality. No deal would mean “chaos” for the 30,000 French businesses that export to the UK, according to the head of the employers’ union. It would wreak havoc in Calais, where customs officers would deal with huge delays (they went on a “zeal strike” in March to illustrate what a no deal would be like). The Channel would become the theatre for a battle between fishermen from either side. And 300,000 French citizens living in the UK could lose their right to live and work there overnight, which would not make France inclined to apply its decree offering residence to Britons on condition that Britain return the favour.

In the spirit of centuries-old Franco-British rivalry, it is Macron’s role as French president to lecture the UK on its grave mistake. For France, the manner in which the UK is rushing towards no deal is mesmerising: Le Monde even dedicated an entire story to toilet paper shortages in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Of course, we’re wondering what you’ll eat once all that’s left is British cuisine. But those kinds of jokes areen’t really funny any more.

• Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Brussels