Macron’s fish war on Britain is no laughing matter

Once upon a time, the insolence demonstrated by Emmanuel Macron in his fish war with the United Kingdom would have been met with a firmer response than inviting the French ambassador to the Foreign Office for a chat.

Bombarding the ramparts of Saint-Malo hardly seems on the menu today, however – even were our navy capable. Boris Johnson has promised to do ‘whatever is necessary’ to protect British vessels but threatening ‘rigorous checks’ on French boats is as feeble as it is improbable, given that the Royal Navy has just eight small boats patrolling 756,000 square kilometres (300,000 square miles) of water, almost four times the surface area of Great Britain. It’s akin to two police cars patrolling all of England, Scotland and Wales. Britain is demonstrably incapable even of rigorously checking the English Channel.

It’s still two days until the official kick-off on November 2 of Macron’s ‘rétortion’ for the denial of a handful of fishing licenses to French scallop boats.