Interesting point about Boris Johnson, who wasted an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons...Johnson's biography of Churchill is a great piece but it's clear he idolises him. If the rumours about destablising peace talks are true, it seems Johnson unfortunately mistook the Russian invasion of Ukraine as his personal 'Churchill' moment in history. Thousands have died. When actually, had he been following his role model, following through on Johnson's early opposition to lockdown was his moment and he blew it... And actually, Covid/Lockdown goes a long way to explaining the current european position. We basically had a temporary form of communism; everyone was paid by the government regardless of whether they did any work; healthcare and education collapsed. Unsurpisingly, this has had a massive knock on effect on the economy. The number of people who have simply exited the labour market is massive. In the UK, researchers have discovered about 5m of us are being paid not too work; whilst some of that is very genuine and those people need help, there is no way 5m are genuinely unable to work in a country where the total workforce is about 36m!
UK and Europe can no longer compete on the world stage, and as the OP points out, is seeking to regulate everyone else instead...