Britain’s relationship with the EU has a habit of interfering with set-piece events
has a habit of interfering with set-piece events. France threatened to ban British boats from its ports, as well as jam up freight heading to and from Britain with extra checks. In turn Britain threatened to sue France for breaching the terms of a trade deal between theallies, nuclear powers and partners on thelarger than Japan’s, issued threats over a fishing industry worth only about 0.1% of it—though they managed to park the issue for a few days while the bigwigs were in town.
Fishing illustrates the Richard Scarry rule: politicians are terrified to mess with workers whose jobs are often depicted in children’s books, since voters have a romantic view of farmers, firefighters, cops, etc. So fights between national fishing fleets can swiftly escalate, until prime ministers and presidents are slapping each other with figurative flounders. Thekeeps such squabbles in check between its members, but Britain has left the club.
Franco-British ties have often frayed. When all went well, it led to good things such as jointly developing Concorde, the world’s first supersonic passenger jet. When things went poorly, it led to bad stuff, like the operational performance of Concorde, which lost lots of money and then fizzled out. When both countries were in the, it took larger disputes, such as Iraq, to strain the relationship. Now, even scallops can blow things off course.
Perpetual arguments beckon, says Samuel Lowe of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. When the row over fish passes, attention will turn to Northern Ireland, a more serious problem. The British government wants to overhaul the Northern Ireland protocol, which oversees trade involving the province. Depending on how it does it, this could trigger an all-out trade war between Britain and the, or, at best, months of negotiations.
The threat is not the rows themselves, but the opportunity costs of dealing with them. Britain and France will remain strong military allies. In the midst of the row, a French sub popped up in Faslane, which is home to Britain’s nuclear subs. The Lancaster House treaties, in which the two countries tied their armed forces together, still stand. Such agreements do not collapse overnight. But they can wither if there is little political desire to keep them watered.
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