Those 3.7 million Covid-19 jabs from the United Kingdom must be due any minute. Nearly two months have elapsed since the Sunday Times splashed the news that British cabinet luminaries planned to give us a dig-out. A “cabinet source” mentioned Easter as a starting point to be followed by further mercy dashes to “developing countries” and then “other EU countries . . . amid fears that the poor vaccine programme in France and Germany could boost extremist parties”.
These visionaries were named: foreign secretary Dominic Raab, cabinet minister Michael Gove and Northern secretary Brandon Lewis. Reader comments beneath were largely of the Dowager Countess of Grantham “we expect this offer to be graciously received” variety.
The motivation behind the “plan” rang with all the altruism one might expect. The proposed exports to the Republic would be the first time the UK exported vaccines to the European Union so it would be a “poke in the eye” for Brussels, said a gloating cabinet minister, since “it could disrupt EU unity”.
At this point, the whole affair reads like a stupid, schoolboy prank in a terrible year
A week before that, Arlene Foster had argued the case for “surplus donations” to the Republic because it would prevent unvaccinated incursions from the Republic into the North “since they can carry Covid with them”. Our cup truly runneth over.
The Covidinous urchins in the Republic were not delighted with the tone but sure look, we said (graciously), we’ll take your 3.7 million jabs anyway.
Yet still no sign of them. Which is not surprising since a fortnight before the Sunday Times splash, Boris Johnson had ruled out any such beneficence to anyone when they were needed at home.
At this point, the whole affair reads like a stupid, schoolboy prank in a terrible year. It could also be read as an attempt by top British cabinet ministers (including Britain’s chief diplomat) to sow discord in a fragile neighbouring country at a time when our vaccination supplies were sluggish and people were restive, a time when rioters were hurling petrol bombs at police in a place they deem as British as Finchley over a protocol whose existence is owed entirely to Brexit red lines, the one that was signed off triumphantly by the same bunch of visionaries.
The pattern of recklessness is well embedded now. Remember the wild Tory excitement over the EU “deal” they negotiated with themselves in January 2019? Probably not. That was the Malthouse Compromise “triple lock”: 1. Extension of the implementation period to 2021. 2. Technological solutions to the backstop. 3. An interim free trade agreement to be tabled immediately.
Number one was done, thanks to EU forbearance. Number three was patently ridiculous. And number two? That will live on as a worthy symbol of Brexit Britain’s magical thinking.
In his final Daily Telegraph column before entering Downing Street amid the raging backstop row, Johnson wrote: “If they could use hand-knitted computer code to make a frictionless re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere in 1969, we can solve the problem of frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border . . . We can come out of the European Union on October 31st, and yes, we certainly have the technology to do so.”
The technology remains a mirage. Minutes from a European Commission discussion on EU-UK relations in April confirm that certain political issues not yet resolved include “the implementation of an IT system to track the movement of goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland”.
Now Downing Street is said to be nervously eyeing July 12th – or as the Financial Times explains helpfully to readers, the anniversary of the victory of the protestant William of Orange over the deposed Catholic king James II in 1690 – as a flashpoint in the protocol stand-off. The DUP leader Edwin Poots has told familiars he wants a “win” on the protocol by that date. Poots and the Loyalist Communities Council – representing UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando paramilitaries – have a powerful friend in Johnson’s EU minister, David Frost. He will not rest, he says, until the protocol is torn up.
It's a dangerous tribal game. For clarity try substituting 'republican paramilitaries' for loyalist and Easter Monday as the date for the 'win'
Lord Frost – a nowhere-bound civil servant turned ardent Brexiteer then adopted by Johnson to be dubbed unelected cabinet appointee and peer, specifically for negotiating the hardest of Brexits – now spends the time trashing his own deal and his negotiating partner intelligence without a sliver of self-awareness, apology or concern for his country’s dire reputation.
Yet it’s worth remembering there were no surprises in the protocol.
None. Only days after the October 2019 withdrawal deal, while Johnson and Frost were still being hailed as Machiavellis, an analysis by their own department for exiting the EU predicted the Irish Sea border outcome with uncanny precision. An honourable man would have resigned his cabinet post and peerage long since.
Now most disturbingly, Frost too has privately set the July 12th target date to end the protocol, according to the Telegraph, the Tory party’s Dear Diary.
The significance of that date is clear to him. He would certainly have learned of it from the loyalist paramilitaries he and Brandon Lewis met with last week and who graced the Commons this week. It’s a dangerous tribal game. For clarity try substituting “republican paramilitaries” for loyalist and Easter Monday as the date for the “win”.
Meanwhile his lordship continues to “negotiate” with the EU by megaphone, threat and the Daily Mail. Time to grow up, boys.