In the middle of a difficult re-election campaign, Mr Macron has been given political gold – the opportunity to position himself as standing up to a British prime minister, who is not generally respected outside his own Conservative party faithful – and not always even by them either. The Johnson administration is desperate to prove to British voters that, despite all the evidence, leaving the EU is a success Since Brexit was based on “taking back control” of Britain’s borders, it is odd that France should now be held responsible for policing them. This has soured Britain’s relationships with its neighbours. That means every failure – on border controls, migration, trade, investment or Northern Ireland – must be blamed on the EU. The key – but often unspoken – issue is that the Johnson administration is desperate to prove to British voters that, despite all the evidence, leaving the EU is a success. People gathered on Folkestone beach to honour the migrants whose boat sank as they tried to get to Britain from France Even some of his own Conservative party colleagues have noted that the British prime minister lacks attention to detail, although he has plenty of advisers who do understand the common courtesies due to friendly foreign leaders.
There are many intertwined problems here. “To publish it with a swaggering tone of ‘I’ve been right all along’ is pretty much guaranteed to get this response from the French,” he said.īy “this response” Ricketts meant French government anger and the cancellation of a trip for the British Home Secretary Priti Patel to go to France to discuss with European leaders, led by Mr Macron, how best to stop the criminal gangs behind people trafficking. Ricketts remarked that this was “terribly bad handling” by Mr Johnson and the letter’s content was even worse.
Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former ambassador to France has been a steady hand advising British governments for many decades. vXH0jpxzPo- Boris Johnson November 25, 2021 He sent a letter to the French president but released the contents on Twitter before Emmanuel Macron had a chance to read it. The resulting row with France over who is to blame for those deaths is counter-productive and yet also confirmation of Mr Johnson’s lack of seriousness. Certainly Mr Johnson’s lack of seriousness repeatedly jars with the profound seriousness of so many problems his government and the country faces from a new variant of coronavirus to the deaths of those risking their lives at sea to come to the UK. The Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, says Boris Johnson is a “trivial” man. When asked which cartoon character the prime minister was most like, Homer Simpson was one name that came up.
In a poll for The Times newspaper, less than a third of voters said Boris Johnson was competent and only a fifth thought he was decisive. Delivering a speech to sober-minded business leaders, Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked if they had visited a theme park based on the cartoon Peppa Pig (they hadn’t). Cartoon characters are commonly referenced nowadays in British politics.