The EU has an ambassador and an embassy in the UK and so to do all the member states of the EU and Washington as well. Funnily enough all of their staff speak english, it is minimum job requirement. Government ministers here however, seem to think that no one is listening to them or understands what they say, except their own supporters.
But when senior ministers give evidence to Parliament or interviews to the media, the embassies pay attention, listen, read and then compile reports for their governments. Those reports are being read in capitals around Europe and far beyond now, this very morning. What they will be saying is this. “The British government is seriously telling its people that the Northern Ireland Protocol is not really a legally binding international treaty, it is more of ‘a policy document as much as anything else”.
Five wasted years of negotiations and British government ministers don’t even know what they have signed. This comes alongside all the stuff about “we didn’t think the EU would actually impose the checks” which since the UK is building the border posts to do the checks in, seems an unlikely story. On top of which we have the constant refrain of “why is the EU insisting on implementing the deal we agreed to?”
You can see the problem this all causes. Trashing the UK’s international reputation in order to pander to your core supporters, blaming others for what you agreed to, trying to wriggle out of what you agreed, like a child refusing to clean their room but still demanding their pocket money. This won’t end well.
https://jonty.substack.com/