Not all is harmonious in Carbis Bay this morning. Amid the sun and sea air, a row has erupted between Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron reportedly suggested to the Prime Minister that Northern Ireland was not part of the same country as the rest of the UK, as part of a heated discussion about sausages, which have become symbolic of the trading difficulties imposed by the Northern Ireland Protocol. The Foreign Secretary, who is also in attendance at the G7 summit, spoke to Andrew Marr about the incident:
DR: It is a failure to understand the facts… We wouldn’t talk about Catalonia in Spain or Corsica in France in those ways… It has real repercussions on the ground… What we want is a bit of respect from the other side, a bit of flexibility, a bit of goodwill. If the EU are willing to show that, we can start a course through.
‘We don’t want to yo-yo’ on lockdown measures
The Prime Minister has indicated that it now looks very unlikely that the UK will see the full removal of social distancing and other Covid control measures on the anticipated date of 21 June. This is largely due to a recent surge in cases courtesy of the ‘Delta’ variant. The decision is bound to cause ructions on the government’s backbenches. Raab defended the probable delay:
DR: I think the key point is we want to move out of lockdown irreversibly… We don’t want to yo-yo back in and out of measures. Of course, we really understand those who are hankering to get to the fourth step… [but] it’s that critical link between transmission and hospitalisations.
‘I don’t like “new Cold War” analogy’
Raab also spoke to Trevor Phillips, who asked him to comment on a recent essay by the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about the development of ‘a new cold war’ between the West and Russia, in a new book edited by Gordon Brown:
DR: I don’t quite like the analogy… but what I do see is the threat that Russia poses… We’ve got to adapt to the new threats we face… [and] we will hold them to account… but the door of diplomacy is always ajar.
We do not think Covid came from lab leak
Phillips inquired about the latest intelligence on where Covid-19 originated from. The Biden administration has made clear that it is willing to look with fresh eyes at the idea that the virus could have escaped from premises such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Raab said that the UK was not pointing the finger at such malpractice (or worse) for now:
DR: Our best information for now is that it didn’t, but we don’t have all the answers. That’s why internationally we wanted the review to be able to go in to China… so we have the full picture… but on balance… we think it’s much more likely to have jumped from animals to humans.
‘It’s very well ventilated on the beach’
Phillips also challenged Raab over images of the G7 leaders at a barbecue where social distancing etiquette apparently left a lot to be desired:
TP: It’s not a good look, is it?
DR: Look, it’s outside, it’s very well ventilated on the beach… We have taken every measure possible to make sure that this is not just Covid secure, but able to take place… I think people will understand the serious business of bringing world leaders together… amidst all of the leisure activities on the beach.
Gordon Brown – ‘Millions will die’ after G7’s ‘missed opportunity’
Phillips went on to speak to the aforementioned former Prime Minister, who sharply criticised the promises made so far at the Carbis Bay summit. These include a pledge of 100 million vaccines to be bought by the UK and distributed across the developing world, with 500 million similarly pledged by the US. Brown told Phillips that this fell far below what was needed:
GB: I think this summit will go down as a missed opportunity… When we needed 11 billion vaccines, we’ve only got offered a plan for 1 billion… This summit will go down as an unforgiveable moral failure… Millions of people will be unvaccinated, and millions of people, I’m afraid, will die.
Emily Thornberry – Holidays abroad ‘very unlikely’ this summer
Marr interviewed the Shadow International Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry. Thornberry gave the view that a great many people would have to substantially rethink their holiday plans:
ET: I think it’s very unlikely that people will go abroad this summer, I’m afraid… We need to hear what the ministers say… [and] people will do the right thing as long as they know what they are expected to do.
Northern Ireland situation ‘completely ridiculous’
Phillips sought Thornberry’s verdict on the government’s attempts to reform the Northern Ireland Protocol. Thornberry argued that everyone involved should ‘look past the sausages’ and professed to be in favour of a ‘Swiss model’ of bilateral agreements as an alternative relationship between the UK and the EU:
Micheál Martin – Channels do exist to get Protocol dispute resolved
The Irish Taoiseach gave a pre-recorded interview with Sky’s David Blevins, and they spoke about how the current tensions over Northern Ireland might be resolved. Martin remained optimistic, and argued for a Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS) as a method of resolving some of the trade disputes, such as those over chilled meats:
MM: The European Union is willing and very engaged in endeavouring to find the resolution to the issues that have been raised… In my view, the channels do exist to get this resolved… If there’s a will there… we should work at it… In our view, an SPS agreement would deal with 80 per cent of all these issues.
Sajid Javid – ‘Child marriage is child abuse’
The former Chancellor Sajid Javid spoke to Tom Newton Dunn and Daisy McAndrew on Times Radio about a private member’s bill that he will bring before the Commons next week, seeking to raise the age of marital consent to 18:
SJ: I believe, simply, that child marriage is child abuse… It has hurt thousands of children in our own country over the last decade… The fact is, rightly, our law says that you are not an adult until you are 18… You can’t get a tattoo… take out a loan, you can’t leave education, yet astonishingly we allow… someone to get married at the age of 16 and 17.
Andrew Hayward – We will have ‘a substantial third wave of infections’
And finally, Andrew Hayward, a professor at London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, and an adviser to the Sage committee, told Marr that the UK should brace itself for a third wave:
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