Brexit resignations prompt 'nation of quitters' doubts

Britain's vote to leave the European Union has prompted a spate of political resignations, starting with that of Prime Minister David Cameron, that have prompted a bout of national soul-searching.

"It does make Britain look like a nation of quitters," Holly Baxter, deputy editor of comment at the Independent, told BBC radio's World Tonight programme on Tuesday, a day after Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage also said he was stepping down.

Freddy Gray, deputy editor of the Spectator said: "After the nation voted to leave, then the political class freaked out and it does seem to be that the only thing leading politicians can do now is resign".

"The only way you can get anyone to say anything positive about you is to say I'm not carrying on, I'm not an ambitious person," he said.

The Daily Mash, a satirical website, even made a joke of the trend saying: "Britons have been inspired to just abandon what they were doing and fuck off".

Jeremy Corbyn has so far clung to the leadership of the opposition Labour Party, but is under immense pressure after 80 percent of his MPs voted against him in a post-referendum vote motivated largely by what was seen as his lukewarm pro-EU campaigning.

- Fleeing general -

Public anger has been particularly strong against Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and onetime favourite to succeed Cameron who failed to launch his widely expected bid last Thursday after fellow Brexit campaigner Michael Gove announced a rival bid.

Britain's former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine said at the time that Johnson had "created the greatest constitutional crisis in peacetime in my life," and "ripped the party apart."

Heseltine described Johnson as "a general who marches his army to the sound of the guns and the moment he sees the battleground he abandons it".

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker twisted the knife on Tuesday in scathing comments at a session of the European Parliament.

"Those who have contributed to the situation in the UK have resigned, Johnson, Farage and others. They are as it were retro-nationalists, they are not patriots," Juncker said.

"Patriots don't resign when things get difficult, they stay," he added.

Finance broker Jason Ferguson said of the Brexit campaigners: "They're just jumping ship.

"They didn't expect it to happen. Because it has happened, they're now scraping the barrel, scratching their minds and thinking, you know what, I'm going to leave, it's the easiest answer," the 38-year-old, who voted to stay in the EU, told AFP.

- Tory treachery -

Cameron announced he would step down as prime minister and Conservative party leader just hours after the result of the referendum became clear on June 24, having campaigned to remain in the bloc.

He said responsibility for triggering Article 50, which officially fires the starting gun on Britain's break-up with the EU, would fall on his successor.

Cameron's decision to quit was widely seen as inevitable but the retreat of "Leave" champion Johnson from the stage on June 30 was a huge shock.

On Monday, it was the turn of Farage -- arguably the man most responsible for Britain's departure from the EU -- to quit, arguing that his anti-EU UK Independence Party no longer needed his leadership.

"The victory for the 'Leave' side in the referendum means that my political ambition has been achieved," Farage said, adding that he would however keep an eye on negotiations as a member of the European Parliament and hold on to its generous salary.

- 'Admission of failure' -

European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said the resignations proved that "Brexit supporters did not know where they were going, they had no plan for the next day."

They were "an admission of irresponsibility, an admission of failure," he added.

The pro-EU Guardian said "two of the people most directly responsible for winning the vote" had "simply walked away".

"Where is any drop of moral seriousness or any ounce of public responsibility, in that? There seems to be none in either man," it added.

"Politicians must own the consequences of their own actions, as adults do in normal life," he said.