Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has called for “a bit of respect” from EU leaders as he claimed the bloc’s senior figures “serially” talk about Northern Ireland “as if it were somehow a different country from the UK”.
The UK and EU are currently at loggerheads over the implementation of post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland – known as the Northern Ireland Protocol – ahead of the end of a “grace period” for some border checks at the end of this month.
The row has threatened to overshadow the UK’s hosting of the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, this weekend – during which Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed some in the EU needed to “get into their heads” that the UK is a single country.
The prime minister’s ire is reported to have been raised during his bilateral talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday morning.
Mr Johnson is said to have attempted to explain his frustration with the protocol by asking what Mr Macron would do if sausages from Toulouse could not be moved to Paris.
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The French president was claimed to have responded by arguing the comparison did not work because Paris and Toulouse were both part of the same country, thereby suggesting Northern Ireland is not within the UK.
Asked by Sky News at the G7 summit if those reports were true, Mr Raab said “as a matter of diplomatic profession” he would not “spill the beans”.
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But he added: “No one should be surprised by these reports and it’s not just one figure.
“We have serially seen senior EU figures talk about Northern Ireland as if it were somehow a different country from the UK.
“That is not only offensive, it has real world effects on the communities in Northern Ireland – it creates great concern, great consternation.
“Could you imagine if we talked about Catalonia, the Flemish part of Belgium, one of the Lander in Germany, northern Italy, Corsica in France as different countries?
“We need a bit of respect here and also, frankly, a bit of appreciation of the situation for all communities in Northern Ireland.”
Mr Raab claimed the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol had been “very lopsided”, which had had “real life effects” on people in Northern Ireland.
Reform’s plan was meant to be detailed. Instead, there’s more confusion.
The party had grown weary of the longstanding criticism that their tough talk on immigration did not come with a full proposal for what they would do to tackle small boats if they came to power.
So, after six months of planning, yesterday they attempted to put flesh on to the bones of their flagship policy.
At an expensive press conference in a vast airhanger in Oxford, the headline news was clear: Reform UK would deport anyone who comes here by small boat, arresting, detaining and then deporting up to 600,000 people in the first five years of governing.
They would leave international treaties and repeal the Human Rights Act to do it
But, one day later, that policy is clear as mud when it comes to who this would apply to.
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Image: Nigel Farage launched an airport-style departures board to illustrate how many illegal migrants have arrived in the UK. Pic: PA
I asked Farage at the time of the announcement whether this would apply to women and girls – an important question – as the basis for their extreme policy seemed to hinge on the safety of women and girls in the UK.
He was unequivocal: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.
“And I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue.”
But a day later, he appeared to row back on this stance at a press conference in Scotland, saying Reform is “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
He later clarified that if a single woman came by boat, then they could fall under the policy, but if “a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do”.
A third clarification in the space of 24 hours on a flagship policy they worked on over six months seems like a pretty big gaffe, and it only feeds into the Labour criticism that these plans aren’t yet credible.
If they had hoped to pivot from rhetoric to rigour, this announcement showed serious pitfalls.
But party strategists probably will not be tearing out too much hair over this, with polling showing Reform UK still as the most trusted party on the issue of immigration overall.
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