Boris Johnson has come in for plenty of criticism since setting out his Brexit blueprint in a 4,000 word article in the Daily Telegraph. But the Sun says the Foreign Secretary has done the PM a favour in speaking up for ‘the 52 per cent who voted Leave and the many more won over since’. ‘Theresa May must listen’ up, the paper says – and she should also ‘ignore the siren calls from Cabinet Remainers’ who want to reverse the referendum result. The attacks levelled at Boris are ‘designed solely to discredit him and trash the optimistic vision’ of Brexit he has set out. Instead of getting angry at Boris, the PM should remember the fact that ‘The EU has more to lose if talks collapse’. ‘The Prime Minister must not flinch over Brexit,’ the paper concludes: ‘It is vital for her future and Britain’s.’
We should remember that Brexit has its downsides for both sides, says the FT: when Britain ups sticks, the EU will lose ‘one of the loudest and most consistent voices for free trade within the union’. Already, Brussels is ‘showing disturbing signs of keeping out foreign goods, services and capital.’ Emmanuel Macron’s proposals to block foreign takeovers from outside the EU are one sign of this growing trend. And while Macron’s proposals are unlikely to be implemented this time around, in future ‘assembling such coalitions’ to stand in the way of similar plans will be trickier still. With the UK on its way out ‘the EU desperately needs a heavyweight member state prepared to stand up and fight for free flows of data, goods, capital and people’, warns the FT. And while the EU is talking up the trade deals it is signing, or trying to sign, with other nations around the world, ‘it also needs to help keep borders open at home’.
The EU isn’t the only supranational organisation in need of reform, according to the Daily Telegraph. Although the United Nations is ‘vital to resolving the wide variety of threats the world faces today,’ it ‘can appear overly cumbersome’ at times – and Donald Trump is right to level criticism at the organisation. In particular, says the Telegraph, Trump is correct ‘to say it needs to “focus more on people, less on bureaucracy”. Take the Rohingya crisis in Burma: ‘The UN’s response to this crisis has been muted’, according to the Telegraph. But if the UN reformed itself ‘it might be able to mount an effective response to such calamities, rather than just stand idly by.’
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