Who is winning the fish war? Will gentlemen in England still a-bed think themselves accursed they were not there?
This morning, the war looked rather, forgive me, fishy. France has suspended until Thursday its threats to disrupt the Channel Tunnel. Boris declared he would make no concessions. His bellicose promise came immediately after the UK and Channel Islands handed the French 100 more fishing permits.
Maybe it will hot up. Maybe not. French-bashing is flourishing at least. Jacob Rees-Mogg has pronounced the French to be always grumpy in October, the anniversary of Agincourt and Trafalgar. And he’s being predictably reflected in Brit-bashing from Paris, dragging out the Marquis de Ximenès’s complaint about perfidious Albion.
Is this it? In the lengthy history of Anglo-French naval engagements, this one has been a disappointment. Not a shot fired. Even the Russians did better than the French, sinking much of the North Sea fishing fleet in 1905 (albeit by accident).
Instead, all we have is a promise that negotiations will continue. Perhaps the negotiators need more time to craft a text allowing each side to declare victory with a straight face.
Whether Boris Johnson can get away with declaring a win, Macron having already won 45 more permits for the Breton scallop men and 50 more for their colleagues in Boulogne, I cannot say. Probably. It’s odd that anyone should really care. Fishing is very many decimal places away from being economically significant in the UK.
But from the southern side of the channel, Macron looks as if he’s done well. Tantrum diplomacy has worked well for him. Politically, it could hardly have been better timed for the president. A tough election looming, this allows him to claim credit not just for saving the Breton scallop men but to claim extra points for putting the United Kingdom in its place, which is never a vote-loser here.
A few weeks ago, Macron was looking battered and bruised. Humiliated by the Anglo-Saxons over submarines. Furious with the Swiss who had rejected his Rafale fighter jets. Angry with Britain over Northern Ireland. Rowing with Algeria over colonialism.
Now the French president appears seigneur over all he surveils. He’s about to assume the presidency of the European Council, where he will be capable of endless mischief. There’s a new bounce to his step, evident in the photos of him in Rome and Glasgow. At the G20 in Rome, Biden groveled to him, claiming he’d known nothing about the Aukus submarine deal. Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, was collaterally humiliated, accused by Macron of being a liar.
By the time the circus arrived in Glasgow, Boris had apparently caved and the new fishing permits were being granted. Macron said he wouldn’t close the Channel Tunnel to search every lorry for ham sandwiches. We’re at status quo ante. The French and the rest can fish British waters much as they did before Brexit, and British boats can land their catches in France. The French will probably release the seized British trawler (the British-registered, Belgian-built Cornelis Gert Jan, owned by Canadians and captained by an Irishman). The UK will not take France to court, or impose ‘rigorous controls’ on EU (i.e. French) fishing boats, not that this was ever likely since the Royal Navy has barely a skeletal fisheries protection capability. Macron won’t turn off the electricity connectors. The EU will heave a sigh of relief.
Jean-Francis Pécresse, a quintessentially establishment French journalist, writing this week in Les Échos, the French business daily, says the dispute has been entirely the fault of Albion, ‘with all the perfidy of which she is capable.’ The UK is no longer a member of the EU yet continues to be a troublemaker, he complains. ‘This cannot go on any longer, when the Union already has enough to do with its eastern flank.’
Meanwhile from London the Sun declared Macron’s, ‘Le surrender,’ Laura Kuenssberg tweeted that the French have ‘stepped back,’ the Mail reported ministers ‘hailing victory’ and the Express declared, ‘Win for Boris! Macron BACKS DOWN in fishing row – changes deadline after Truss masterstroke.’
Perhaps a clearer picture of who won and who lost the Fish war might emerge in days to come. Perhaps the current truce will hold. Perhaps not. It seems from here Macron’s got what he wanted. Winner? Losers? It’s not necessarily in the interest of anyone to clarify the point. The jingoistic media are entirely predictable and it is simply more convenient to let everyone claim victory and tuck in to a nourishing plate of Coquilles Saint-Jacques, prepared with a dash of olive oil, garlic, a splash of Grenache and a pinch of spices.
Written by Jonathan Miller
If victory eludes us in the row over fishing rights around Jersey, the prospect of Macron at No 10 has much to recommend it
Ed Cumming - Sun 9 May 2021 09.30
If this week has demonstrated anything, it’s that war with France is one of few policies to still enjoy true cross-party support. Brexiters are happy because they crave armed conflict with the uppity frogs above all else. Remainers are happy because they always said Brexiters craved armed conflict with the uppity frogs, and they crave being proved right in a losing cause.
Other than being paid by the government not to work, it’s hard to think of another idea in recent years that everyone has rallied around with such enthusiasm. In fraught times, we ought to be grateful for these fleeting bursts of unity.
I’m as excited for the conflict as the next man, unless he lives on the Isle of Wight, but I’m afraid those in command may not have thought through the implications. Because there will only be one winner: France. For all the surrender-monkey talk, the history couldn’t be clearer. When we have beaten France, in the Napoleonic or seven years wars, we have done so with German help. Every time we try to go it alone, we have to scurry home, stubby little bulldog tails between our legs: hundred years war, war of 1778, the Norman Conquest. I’m not sure Mrs Merkel is itching for a scrap.
There will be some early grounds for hope. Led by Dominic Raab in full kit and shin pads, the SAS will parachute in and seize our ancestral booze warehouses across the Channel. The burghers of Calais will be force-fed les burgers Anglais they were so rude about in the 90s.
It won’t last. In time, the Foreign Legion will be marching down Oxford Street, while their generals loot Mr Bean DVDs and Oasis albums from the smoking wreckage of HMV. Rowan Atkinson will eventually be flushed out of his bunker, Saddam-style, and forced to perform Bean skits for 20 hours a day. The Queen will be exiled to Balmoral in the newly independent vassal state of Scotland, replaced by the puppet transition leader, Arsène Wenger. Stepping into his new quarters on Downing Street, Mr Macron will shake his head sadly at the depraved extravagance that led to such wallpaper, the last gasps of a venal and corrupt administration.
Coming from a family of 1066 blow-ins, I’m conflicted. Am I pleased we’ll lose the war with France? It’s hard to say. As is their custom, our new leaders will strip every open space of all grass and replace it with that weird pink gravel they’re so obsessed with. Eton will keep its name but fulfil a new role as the Ecole Technocratique Nationale.
No longer able to define themselves in patriotic opposition to their French counterparts, our holiday towns will be deserted, with disastrous effects on house prices. Marmite and baked bean factories will be blown up. Rather than a Byzantine dance of conspiracy and interviews, the next series of Line of Duty will be six hours of horny students being beaten up by cops. Now Daft Punk have disbanded, there will be nobody to headline Glastonbury. Coffee will become undrinkable and, strangely, so will tea.
It won’t all be bad. France is sometimes described as a paradise populated by people who think they’re living in hell, which is to say the opposite of Surrey. There will be advantages: cooked breakfast will be banned, replaced by room-temperature breakfast, and lunch will be compulsory. Pret a Manger will be seized by the state, briefly renamed Ready to Eat and then razed to the ground to encourage the others. Tinned confit duck will no longer have to be smuggled back in the boots of family cars but instead will be made available in every newsagent.
There will be wine everywhere, except McDonald’s, where there will be beer. The price of Greggs sausage rolls will be capped by the state. It will cost money to drive on motorways but they will all be incredible.
Rather than chiding our politicians for extramarital shenanigans, we will be forced to admire them, and instead berate any who make the error of marrying their lovers. It will be impossible to get a job but also impossible to be sacked. Everyone will work less but, inexplicably, be more productive. Everyone will retire at 62, except train drivers who will retire at 52. All parents will have access to cheap childcare. We’ll have a national anthem with a discernible tune.
When we lose the war with France, England will be the winner.