It all looked as if Brussels has gone completely OTT and are using the row to deflect blame. Somebody on Twitter remarked that it has put rejoining back for years.
This may be true, yet nothing better illustrates why the EU is needed. What we are seeing is a rise in nationalism, vaccine nationalism in this case, and we should all be very careful about it.
I think the decision to put the purchase of vaccine into the hands of the commission was the right one - whatever has happened since. Imagine if say, Germany had acquired millions of doses for itself while, say, Portugal couldn't get any at all. It would have been existential for the EU with countries at each other's throats. It is clearly better to arrange things at a European level, supra-nationally, so that vaccination is shared out as equitably as possible.
What Britain did was to steal a march, act independently, and buy up a lot of AZ's capacity. It probably looked like a good idea and nobody can blame Johnson for doing everything possible in the middle of a national crisis. But when the vaccines came good much quicker than anyone expected and the UK rollout starts stretching ahead of the rest of Europe, it puts pressure on all the individual EU member states governments. Why aren't we getting doses?
It is not necessarily now about the speed of roll out but about the disparity between European countries, those in the EU are likely to be behind us - at least in the first phase. But is it right that we may be vaccinating 30-40 year olds while elderly and more vulnerable people in the EU can't get vaccinated? Personally, I wouldn't like to think I'm depriving somebody who needs a jab more than I do.
Let's not forget that this may go on for years with annual jabs to maintain resistance and it is a marathon rather than a sprint.
The British press haven't helped with the we're-doing-better-than-you approach and let's be honest the coronavirus pandemic has been used to further political ends and to damage Johnson personally - sometimes with justification, sometimes not. Some have used it as a proxy for the Brexit argument.
It is a harbinger of the next few years. If the UK economy does badly the pro-EU side will use it as a club to beat the Tories. If the eurozone does badly Brexiters will say we were right to leave and so on. Everything that happens in Europe over the next few years will be seen through the Brexit distorting mirror.
On the BBC News Channel yesterday, following a meeting between a group of Britain's leading business organisations and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, which raised urgent concerns about major issues at the borders and warning of ‘substantial difficulties’ at UK ports, the BBC managed to find a woman from a company exporting dairy products to the EU to say it had all been a "positive experience." Natalie Bowes is MD of Bio-tiful Dairy ltd and she seemed delighted by it all.
This came literally a few hours after the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the manufacturers’ group Make UK, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors had a meeting with Gove.
It must have taken quite a bit of effort to find somebody who exports to the EU who thinks having to fill in a lot of additional customs forms checks is something positive and beneficial. I'm not sure what the BBC are up to.
