Worrying times. The EU/UK relationship is getting more toxic by the day. The situation with the Northern Ireland Protocol clearly demonstrates that the EU has only one objective here which is to be as punitive as possible by taking the letter of the law to ridiculous lengths. In an earlier post I opined that I didn’t think Von Der Leyen could do big picture thinking and neither does she have anybody around her who can and, crucially, that she will listen to. I think we could expand that to include Macron now. The strategy is clear; under no circumstances can the UK be seen to prosper after Brexit therefore: Refuse financial services equivalence (granted to Brazil amongst others…), Apply 20% of all EU border checks to goods entering Northern Ireland, block shellfish imports from the UK to name but a few. The objective seems to be to stop the UK competing effectively with the EU and becoming ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ i.e. a low tax, low regulation business hub. Fair enough you might think. but, pause for a moment and consider; the NI situation cannot be maintained. Something has to give, either the Protocol or, potentially, the whole Withdrawal Agreement (WA). If the WA goes so does the £39 billion. But we lose the tariff free, unrestricted trade you cry. Well yes, but it’s hardly been friction free with Dutch Border guards confiscating ham sandwiches and the amount of paperwork required to export anything to the EU so I don’t see much, if any, difference there. But it will encourage the ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ model and is that not what the EU has been trying to forestall?
It’s a theme though – fuck up the vaccine ordering process and the response is to try to pressure Astra Zeneca to breach contractual obligations, demand the UK diverts some of it’s contracted supplies, threaten to use effectively war emergency powers to seize intellectual property and physical assets and invoke Article 16 to suspend the NI Protocol. No thought nor care about the optics or the long term impacts. In like vein, Macron is in big trouble politically what with the Gilletes Jaunes and the Covid response so his instinctive response is to have a pop at the UK. So we arrive at a situation where Boris Johnson is better thought of than Macron by the French. I blame his Mum wife for not sorting him out.
I see there is a pile on and boycott of GB News. The ‘bien pensant’ are encouraged to boycott companies advertising their products on the station because it’s not Left leaning as far as I can tell. I really don’t see the problem to be honest. No one is forcing anyone to watch it, it’s not as though you are legally obliged to fund it so what, exactly, is your problem? Obviously this feeds into a wider issue about the need for diverse opinions to stimulate debate that enables people to examine their point of view – not I emphasise necessarily change it – but perhaps even strengthen it . But passive group think is much less intellectually demanding, after all you don’t need to understand the detail about anything Boris Johnson (or any Conservative) does when you can immediately dismiss it as unacceptable/awful/<pejorative of choice> because Boris was – singlehandedly – responsible for Brexit and so is wrong by definition. So all shout ‘gammon’ and have a good laugh and it’s job done.
By the same token the Left cannot possibly be wrong under any circumstances so any suggestion of Anti Semitism as a for instance is dismissed as smears. It’s the Age of False News where the truth, such as it is this days, is whatever you think it should be and you won’t have to look very far to find an obliging gobshite to support your ‘theory’. Sometimes I despair I really do.
On to brighter things. I’m pleased to see our Merry Monégasque knight Sir Lewis Hamilton is struggling in his bid for an eighth World Championship as he doesn’t appear to have the fastest car unlike previous years. That’s odd though as the pundits have been banging on for years about how brilliant a driver he is and how lovable etc. etc. Then, of course, George Russell who has to squeeze himself into the car and probably would have won the race were he not sabotaged suggests it was the car. This season appears to confirm it. Mind you, I’ve always thought that the best drivers were those like Fernando Alonso & Michael Schumacher who could get more performance out of a bad car than anyone else rather than the flat track bullies like Hamilton.