The latest twists in the Westminster Brexit drama are gripping Europe’s newspapers.

Some see a frustrating impasse, others a democratic push-back, but several believe UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will emerge the ultimate victor in an election.

“Boris Johnson’s strategy in parliament turns into chaos” declares a headline in France’s Le Monde.

Mr Johnson’s best bet now, the paper suggests, is to campaign for a general election “by playing the role of a leader restrained by a parliament favourable to the EU and deaf to the 2016 popular vote, which sabotaged his negotiating strategy with Brussels”.

‘Kamikaze strategy’

For Italy’s largest-circulation daily, Il Corriere della Sera, “Boris Johnson is like a cornered boxer”.

It says the prime minister’s strategy has been to force Europe to face the real possibility of a no-deal exit. “But it’s been a kamikaze strategy because Brussels does not appear ready to cede. Great Britain is falling headlong into the abyss,” the paper says.

Italy’s liberal Repubblica compares Mr Johnson’s defeats to the fall from power of Italian populist leader Matteo Salvini. “The good news is that for any leader, no matter how powerful and popular the same rules of moderation, attention and reflection apply, which are essentially democratic values.”

According to the Irish Independent, “We are moving into the realm of the last chance.”

It questions the grasp of reality by MPs on all sides of the argument. “So often we see how people make their decisions based on what the facts mean to them, not on the facts themselves. But the facts of Brexit have been distorted to such a degree that it is small wonder so many are in two minds.”

“If Brexit was conceived – as it sometimes seems – purely as an experiment by a cabal of ill-advised politicians to outsmart reality, they have come undone for now. Their zeal for their project took them a long way, but their progress was halted on encountering an equal and opposite force – otherwise known as democracy.”

Exhausted Brits are tuning out in droves, according to Belgium’s Le Soir. “The storm does not seem ready to stop, or the fog to dissipate. In pubs around Westminster, the British are sipping their beer and no longer paying attention to television which broadcasts hours of heated parliamentary debates. Brexit fatigue?”

Labyrinth or precipice?

Two very different German papers both believe that Mr Johnson will win a general election, despite yesterday’s parliamentary votes.

A headline in centre-right Die Welt says his “100% error rate does not help his opponents”.

It adds: “His prospects for success? Very good… considering an opposition that still does not know which Brexit it wants.”

For Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a centre-left daily, it may look as if Mr Johnson has been weakened, “but should he be successful in his plans, he would have a good chance of winning those elections – which could explain his current confrontational tactics”.

Meanwhile Spain’s El Mundo sees British politicians “trapped in a labyrinth”.

Worse still, they’re suffering “a pathological vertigo in the face of a precipice and a decision that will define the lives of several generations of British people”, the centre-right daily warns.

BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

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