There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must fail and must be seen to fail. So it is a problem that the first major act of Brexit Britain — going its own way to obtain and approve vaccines — appears to have been a success. For this reason, EU leaders must cast doubt on the achievement. As I say in the magazine this week, look at how Clément Beaune, Macron’s Europe Minister, went out of his way to tweet out his criticisms of the UK approach. (To be fair, there is a Brexiteer version of this hostile sentiment. You can find those on the Tory backbenches who think that Britain’s success requires the EU’s failure.)
The sensitivity about the relative pace of the two immunisation programmes is such that when one British minister spoke to a European opposite number earlier this month about an exports issue, he was told that it would help matters if UK politicians stopped linking the speed of the vaccine programme to Brexit.
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