Some have become rich in Brussels since Johnson threatened to violate the British treaty with the European Union in September last year, in violation of international law, if the two parties did not reach a trade agreement.
At home, the prime minister has not lost any time in using the vaccine as a club against his political rivals. Johnson mocked Labor leader Keir Starmer in the House of Commons on Wednesday for saying he wanted Britain to stay in the European Medicines Agency, which approves the vaccination less than the British regulator.
Mr. Starmer dismissed the claim as “nonsense” before later admitting that he once said that Britain would remain better under European regulators (although he noted that this was not his party’s position).
Legal experts pointed out that Britain would have had the authority to approve vaccines just as quickly, even if it was still in the European Union, even if it had less political chance of acting alone.
Yet it was a damaging refuge for Mr. Starmer, one who set off alarm bells in the ranks of the Labor Party. Johnson’s Conservative party maintained a modest lead over Labor in the polls, despite the government’s handling of the pandemic, which was marked by delays, reversals and mixed messages.
Britain recently suffered 100,000 deaths, the highest toll of any European country. For now, however, voters appear to be more focused on vaccine deployment, which this week reached a milestone that 10 million people receive first doses.
While much of the credit for the rapid spread should belong to Britain’s national health service, experts say it is also a tribute to the government’s earlier investment in promising vaccines, such as one manufactured by Oxford and AstraZeneca.