Circle the wagons: Europe draws together confronting an enemy to its east and a rogue state to its west. “Everything has changed,” said the prime minister and chancellor, and so it has. Once nestled in the arms of Nato, now alarmingly alone, we have no choice but to embrace neighbours we shunned. Thanks to Vladimir Putin, (nearly) all Europeans now see clearly what was always the case. In danger we need each other, never mind fish or dynamic alignment.
But talking about less important things was always the British way. So headlines and the Today programme bang on about the 12-year continuance of the fishing deal struck by Boris Johnson, allowing French boats into our waters. It’s hard on fishing communities, but not worse than before. The Brexiters used and cheated fishers. But a government has to weigh up winners and losers when fishing contributes just 0.03% to UK GDP and 10,000 jobs. Now set that against the 2.5% of GDP we spend on defence with 164,000 jobs. As the pathway opens up for British defence industries to bid for contracts from the giant €150bn EU defence fund, that’s altogether another kettle of fish.
