The EU dropped a bollock. A massive bollock. A bollock the size of Jupiter. There, I said it. I am a militant remainer, someone who voted for the UK to stay in the EU in 2016, and would vote to rejoin the EU if the opportunity ever presented itself. But I can still criticise the EU without compromising my views. This is because, like pretty much ever remain voter I know, I can criticise EU decisions while not wanting to dismantle the whole damn thing.
The bollock to which I am referring is, of course, the vaccine debacle. What started out as the EU being disgruntled over what it saw as AstraZeneca not being able to fulfil the vaccine order from a paying customer quickly degenerated into an unseemly spectacle. AstraZeneca was about 75 million doses short of being able to meet the EU's order of 300 million doses, with the option of a further 100 million. AstraZeneca cited production problems at their Netherlands and Belgium plants. The EU demanded that AstraZeneca should send over a load of doses manufactured here in the UK.
Unsurprisingly, the headlines seen across the UK front pages did not take a measured tone. It was an opportunity to take a huge potshot at the EU while talking up our own vaccination success. Behold, the WWII cosplay language of war and British victory, of explosions - and a Mafia analogy. This was an absolute gift for Boris Johnson - the front pages made him look mighty and powerful, despite lethally mismanaging the pandemic since the beginning, and we could all blame the EU for being mean and evil again. Just like old times! The fruit was so low-hanging, it was growing with the potatoes.
But then a grown-up entered the room. Michel Barnier, the man who had the thankless task of leading EU negotiations over Brexit, offered his reasonable view that Brussels had overstepped the mark with the UK, and before long, there was a screeching U-turn from the EU. Unlike every embarrassing U-turn Boris Johnson has performed in regard to managing the pandemic, the EU's about-face was swift. There was no EU raid on UK-made vaccines.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was reckless when she effectively called for a hard vaccine border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - and she has kept a low profile ever since backtracking on this issue. The risk to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement cannot be understated here. But her ill-conceived statement exposed just how fragile peace is and, crucially, how the Brexit deal is poorly equipped to cope when Irish border issues crop up.
The whole fiasco also exposed the embarrassing absurdity of vaccine nationalism. Yes, the UK is ahead of the EU in rolling out a vaccination programme, which is obviously a good thing. Only a psychopath or an anti-vaxxer would say otherwise. It was a gamble to start the programme three months ahead of the EU but it paid off. The rollout is not perfect - there is plenty of evidence to suggest there is a postcode lottery that means rates of vaccinations are varying significantly from region to region, and the real logistical test will come when it is time to give some people their second shot while new groups are being invited to book their first shot - but we are making steady progress.
And the EU will, of course, catch up with the UK on vaccinations. Belgium, Czech Republic, Malta, and Portugal are already doing pretty well. This is also a good thing. It is in our interests for people across the EU as well as in the UK to be vaccinated in a timely manner. Brexit or not, the geography does not change, we are still part of the wider world, people are keen to travel to Europe for work, for play, to see friends and family, and the virus does not care about national borders.
Carrying on about a British "victory" over the EU makes us look like idiots, just as the EU made itself look silly by making demands on UK supplies. Crowing about our vaccination figures, as if it's a contest rather than a serious global health emergency that can only be properly managed through international cooperation, is pathetic behaviour for a country where its leaders claim that Brexit makes us more outward-looking.
The EU dropped a bollock over vaccines. Then it did the right thing and backtracked. Tiresomely, Brexiters will bang on for the rest of their lives about the time the EU tried to nick our jabs. But the rest of the world won't care, especially as none of this has affected the EU's humanitarian vaccine efforts in developing countries. The rest of the world will move on while Brexiter Twitter will refuse to let it go, like Miss Havisham in a Union Jack wedding dress. And we'll be left with the ongoing economic and social consequences of a poor Brexit deal, as well as the loss of more than 100,000 people. Some victory, eh?
Photography by Gustavo Fring
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