Real politic: When fantasy meets reality.

Doctor North sums up the EU’s situation most succinctly in the last sentence of his blog-post today (http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87868) when he states – with a most satisfying degree of sarcasm: “One can only admire the skill with which the Commission has managed to convert a winning position into a train-wreck in such short a space of time.”
Whilst Brexiteers such as Mr Farage have seized UvdL’s handling as evidence of all He (for it is Farage) has ever said about the EU and how a sovereign independent state can exploit it’s freedom to save the lives of it’s own citizens, he FAILS to miss the point that we made in Thursday’s blog-post which was that when “push comes to shove” nation states and their leaders will act in their own interests BEFORE they act in the interests of others. It isn’t a case of every man [sorry, person] for themselves, it’s a case of every sovereign entity for themselves.
We use the term “sovereign entity” specifically to describe the EU because that is what it is as the Treaty of Lisbon gave it a separate legal personality from it’s members and in addition bestowed it’s own citizenship upon all the citizens of it’s members.
Given these FACTS, UvdL was doing what she felt she was right; defending the interests of her fellow EU citizens. Remember, UvdL took a solemn oath to serve the EU and we all know by the examples history has set us when Germans take oaths: They have a habit of keeping them! Unlike certain members of Her Majesty’s Privy Council! Yes Gordon Brown, that includes you!
What Prime Minister Johnson has to do now is to achieve TWO things simultaneously:
#1: Ensure that supplies of UK ordered vaccine is not interrupted.
NB: He is helped in this regard by the FACT that AstraZeneca plc will have ensured that it’s very expensive lawyers will have earned their enormous fees and have got a legally watertight contract.
#2: Restrain himself and his fellow ministers and Tory back bench MPs from aggravating an already bad situation. The principal means of achieving objective #2 is to say nothing or very little.