Boris Johnson’s book on his years in Downing Street is nowhere to be found in Brussels. And it’s his fault.
Karma hit the former anti-EU campaigner as post-Brexit red tape snarled the delivery of his headline-grabbing book Unleashed to the EU capital.
“It didn’t arrive and it’s because of Brexit. It’s ironic,” said an assistant manager at British book retailer Waterstones in central Brussels.
The staffer added that British books take around a week longer to reach the EU market as a result of extra checks at the border that were introduced after Brexit.
Johnson’s memoir came out in the U.K. on October 10 but is expected to arrive in Brussels only later Monday. Waterstones’ only shops outside the U.K. are in Amsterdam, Brussels and several Irish towns.
The delay means that European officials will have to wait another few hours to fact-check Johnson’s claims about the Brexit negotiations and his (at times difficult) relationship with EU leaders.
In his memoir, Johnson accused French President Emmanuel Macron of turning a blind eye to gangs smuggling people across the English Channel to punish the U.K. for Brexit.
Another eye-popping claim is that, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Johnson considered sending troops to the Netherlands to seize doses of Covid vaccines held in Leiden.
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