Macron’s claim in a new year broadcast that Brexit was a product of “lies and false promises” has got to be the biggest lie yet itself.
Was it a joke? Does French President Emmanuel Macron need to do irony to show the world that the French have a sense of humour? Macron’s claim in a new year broadcast that Brexit was a product of “lies and false promises” has got to be the biggest lie yet itself, from a leader so desperate to cling on to power and clinch a second term in office that he had to resort to playing dirty over Brexit negotiations to save French fishermen’s jobs.
The lies from the French leader, in fact, stack up quite considerably, leaving many wondering whether he is tone deaf when it comes to such ludicrous political statements. Just look at the doomsday scenario which he was responsible for creating as a scare tactic to intimidate the British team of negotiators. Hundreds of British lorries stranded on the UK side due to measures by the French to block them due to a new strain of Covid – which just so happened to arrive at the eleventh hour of Brexit talks, literally hours before the shutters were to be pulled down and Britain would have adopted WTO rules from January 1st. If that stunt wasn’t enough to show the British people how desperate the French and the EU as a whole is, then we only need to look at another pack of lies to confirm our worst suspicions. The chaos and calamity of a post-Brexit relationship with the EU, apparently, was only a figment of imagination originally created by Macron and his EU cronies when the whole Brexit debate kicked off when President Macron took office in May 2017. Just as a “no deal” scenario, which in reality, we know now from Brussels insiders was never a real option for the French negotiator Michel Barnier.
Was there an exodus of international companies which fled to EU capitals from the UK, as was reported? The thousands of “stranded” British citizens in Europe? Even with a trade deal done, where are the tale backs of British lorries on either side of the channel, coping with new regulations? Where is the run on the British pound? The eclectic range of lies was pretty amazing, none of which have even faintly rung true.
But the real lies are on Macron’s side as he is the herald of disinformation and empty threats by an EU he pretends to love, which, in reality, will give him a top job when his second term expires. The lie of EU unity and the farcical sanctity of the democratic process was evident when France took the decision alone in December to block UK lorries for several days entering French ports – similarly to the validity of the Schengen Agreement which most countries abandoned earlier in the year when Covid broke out.
But there is a bigger lie which Macron and others keep alive, which is of course the one which was presented to many new EU member states who joined the bloc in 2004, who were told that their membership was crucial in rebalancing the bloc away from the so-called ‘Franco-German’ axis. In reality, France and Germany grew even stronger and, barely days after Britain left the bloc, we are seeing smaller EU member states complain about German bullying over rushing through a new EU-China trade deal. The fact that Macron was allowed to get away with threatening to scupper a trade deal with Britain at the eleventh hour over a fishing dispute is plain to see how Macron is capable of holding Brussels hostage for his own political gain. To talk about Brexit lies is preposterous when a big part of why Britain left the EU was really about lies and trickery which Brussels punted to the UK public for decades, which, under scrutiny didn’t stand up. The baloney about the strength of the single market and how much power it yields those who are members, as just one example, blown to pieces by a Brexit deal which Boris Johnson negotiated which gave the UK tariff free access to it.
The real lie though, from Macron, is in fact the one to the French people. They should be taking stock of how he behaved during the Brexit process and how low he stooped to protect his own neck. The lie which he upholds every day is how invaluable EU membership is to the French, when it is EU regulations which are strangling French companies unable to compete with non-EU firms who enjoy unfettered access to France, supposedly respecting EU directives in the manufacturing process. France, a once powerful colonial power and a founding member of the EU has practically become a financial disaster zone and Macron knows only too well that when the UK economy grows post corona at a rate which some economists have predicted could be as high as 8 percent, that he will have to carry on inventing more lies to explain to French people why they can’t heat their own homes or put fuel in their tiny French hatchbacks.
The lies and false promises that Macron talks about surely must be about what he has been telling his own people about the British demise. The EU believes that it has an escape plan for itself to save face in front of a number of sceptical countries which might follow the UK – The Netherlands and Denmark certainly – but in reality this is also just another pack of lies dressed up to fool a gullible public who don’t realise that most of what comes from Brussels via the media is a diatribe of manufactured consent from French hacks in the Belgian capital doing their duty and helping the EU press machine with its fake news agenda. “Lies and false promises” of Brexit? Is Macron having a laugh?
