Don’t expect Macron’s win to reset UK-France ties. French president’s reelection unlikely to ease long-running tensions over Brexit and more.

5 comments

  1. If you had to deal with Boris Johnson, would you be his best mate, were you the leader of another country? A man who lies about almost everything, even in his private life.

  2. Latest I could find

    >[*Day two of Le Snub: Boris Johnson STILL hasn’t called Emmanuel Macron to congratulate him on his French election win*](https://archive.ph/3SYPp)
    >
    > Updated: 16:45, 26 April 2022
    >
    >Downing Street continued to play down talk of a rift with France today as officials confirmed Boris Johnson has still not spoken to Emmanuel Macron in the wake of his re-election.
    >
    >Macron saw off far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential election at the weekend.
    >
    >But despite leaders including Joe Biden, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and even China’s Xi Jinping calling the Elysee to congratulate him on his second term, No10 said there was no call scheduled today.

  4. Why would anyone expect anything different? The focus on Mr. Macron is pretty weird, IMHO, as he is not the problem. Fundamentally, even Mr. Johnson isn’t, as he just fills a niche created by the breakdown of the UK’s political system. The problem is that, fundamentally, a government that will say and do anything for immediate domestic political gain, regardless of laws, treaties, morals or even the UK’s material interests, can not ever be trusted. Even if you can find common ground, there is no guarantee they won’t blow it all up the moment they see a fleeting domestic political advantage in doing so. At the end of the day, what has this UK government done on the diplomatic front, exactly? It has systematically destroyed the UK’s relationship with its neighbours and trashed its reputation as a reliable, pragmatic partner, all to please a minority of voters in the UK and a group of radical MP’s who hold the balance of power in its parliament.

    And what happens now, when the UK’s Conservative party is under political pressure at home? They come up with a flurry of policies that seem designed to please the xenophobic elements among their supporters. Policies designed to harm immigrants, laws that deliberately break the Withdrawal Agreement (again!), …, the usual suspects. How can you expect the EU or its member state governments to react favourable to any of that?

    Even if you look at it from a purely practical perspective, it doesn’t help the UK at all. The way Mr. Johnson, his government and his party works now seriously weakens the UK’s negotiation position, versus the EU or others. They too realize how the game is played. Other potential trade partners will recognize the UK government’s political need for quick trade deals and capitalize on that by asking for more concessions. The EU will simply play it slowly. It will keep ramping up the pressure, legal and political, while it drags out the negotiations because it knows that Brexit as a mobilizing political force is on the wane while the costs will keep rising. And all the while, it will keep offering face saving but ultimately meaningless concessions, knowing full well that sooner or later the UK government will bite because it only ever cares about the optics and immediate domestic political effect of its decisions. And if they later try to renege on it, the EU will simply repeat the exercise. It knows the UK can not leave the EU’s economic sphere without ruining its economy, and can not really afford a trade war either. If the UK government is irresponsible enough to escalate this, then the EU still has all the agency it needs to exert ruinous pressure. The UK is basically doomed to repeat the same dance over and over, and then when the next non-radical-populist UK government comes to power, those treaties signed with the EU will still be binding. It is a fight the UK can not win and can not really afford. It continues only because it fuels the political careers of various individuals within its governing party. Sooner or later that will stop, and when the dust settles the legal and political reality will be the same.

Leave a Reply