Anyone who thinks today's visit to Downing Street by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is anything other than a deliberate and clumsy provocation needs to think again. He was described this morning on Radio 4 as 'hostile to democracy' and 'friend of Putin' among other things. Orban blocked the EU issuing a statement critical of China on human rights for example and is openly Islamophobic. He funnels EU money to his relatives. Apart from Belarus and Russia itself, it's hard to imagine any country in Europe further from the ideals this country has stood for for centuries.
The visit symbolises Brexit, which has turned Britain (or at least England) into a pariah, one that now has to associate with other pariahs. This is a tweet from a director of Chatham House:
Viktor Orban is the first EU leader Boris Johnson will host after Irish PM Martin. Given Orban’s record of hollowing out Hungarian democracy & close relations w Putin, the visit calls into question the values Johnson says Global Britain stands for.
— Robin Niblett (@RobinNiblett) May 28, 2021
Britain look small instead
It sends a message to the EU that we are not a friend, and that Brexit wasn't enough for Brexiteers. They are now set on destroying the EU and are operating on the basis that my enemies enemy is my friend. It is not going to end well.
Brussels will see it as Johnson and Orban plotting to damage the EU - as they surely are. What else do they have in common? Biden, I'm sure will not welcome it. A strong EU is needed to counter Russia's growing confidence.
No doubt Orban will be quite happy to block European developments that we do don't like, giving us a vicarious proxy veto power over Brussels.
The visit sits alongside recent reports that EU nationals are being stopped by UK Border Force officers, detained and fingerprinted ‘like criminals’ for supposedly trying to enter the country 'illegally.' This is the kind of thing that Iran, North Korea and Russia does.
An Italian hotel manager, out of work due to the Covid pandemic, told the Guardian he was held for seven hours at Calais after UK Border Force officials concluded he would be a potential drain on the benefits system even though he had €4,500 in funds. They deemed it was “not sufficient to cover all reasonable costs in relation to your being without working or accessing public funds” and because he hadn't booked a return ticket they assumed he was trying to sneak in permanently.
He has vowed never to return.
A Danish pastry chef who tried to visit her boyfriend in the UK was turned away as being suspected of trying to get in illegally. She was advised that if she turned around voluntarily then her encounter with them would not be registered. They issued her with something called an IS81 stamp on her passport indicating “a person had made an application to enter” but no decision on that could be made because they had subsequently withdrawn it.
"When she made another attempt to enter the UK, arriving at Heathrow on Sunday night, she discovered the full impact of IS81, which flagged her previous attempt, and she spent the next five hours crying in an airport detention room."
She had a return ticket for 16 June and insisted that she was only exercising her right as an EU citizen to visit the UK without a visa. This is terrible and will surely backfire. And if you think these are isolated examples take a look at this:
New immigration stats out today reveal first signs of impact of end of free movement.Most striking thing I've seen so far - number of EU passengers initially refused entry to UK at port has skyrocketed pic.twitter.com/zwBCqj1ghM— Marley Morris (@MarleyAMorris) May 27, 2021
There has been an exponential rise in passengers from EU states being "initially refused entry" into the UK. I assume this means some, maybe most, of them are eventually allowed in but it must be a shocking experience.
This news will soon spread throughout Europe and we will find not only are we preventing undesirables coming in, we are also dissuading desirables, the skilled professionals with expertise that we need, from even applying to come here in the first place. Who wants to risk being utterly humiliated at a UK border? I wouldn't do it.
So, we have put down a marker about how we intend to conduct foreign policy in future. Not to further the cause of democracy and human rights but as a tool to annoy the EU and damage the unity and prosperity of the EU27. No doubt they will reciprocate.
It seems to me the Tory party, or a cabal inside it, are not working to improve the lot of the British people but using the nation as a blunt instrument to achieve their own agenda. We have gone well beyond a tiny, stupid anti-EU political party like UKIP, that never won seat at Westminster but infiltrated a bigger one to gain influence. The cancer has spread a long way.
The Tory party, fearing that they might be outflanked, absorbed UKIP's anti-EU rhetoric, shifted itself sharply right, detached Britain from the EU and is now busy trying to dismantle Europe. It is deeply worrying.
But it is not even productive. At the same time that we are irritating Brussels, for no good reason except that we can, Lord Frost was complaining to peers yesterday that the EU are unreasonably trying to get Britain to abide by the NI protocol that he negotiated. This is the idiot yesterday afternoon
"My Lords, the noble Lord is right to observe that we are not particularly happy with the way that the protocol is being implemented. Our hope is that we can find solutions to this with the European Union. I speak frequently to my EU colleague, Maroš Šefčovič, and our teams are in regular touch. Talks are going on semi-continuously on these questions and we hope to have made progress in dealing with some of the most difficult issues by the time of the joint committee, but obviously it takes two sides to move forward and find pragmatic solutions. Progress is limited at the moment but we keep working at it."
Not particularly happy about the way the NI protocol is being implemented? Why enter into a contract that depends on the other party implementing it in a way you don't like? It's like getting a bank loan and then complaining they want you to make monthly repayments as specified in the contract.
It does take two sides to move forward but what incentive is there for the EU when we are fingerprinting their nationals as if they're common criminals when they clearly are not, while associating with people hostile to the EU who clearly are? It makes no sense.
Finally, you may have noted that talks with Switzerland about a new treaty to replace the complex web of 120 or so bilateral agreements have broken down after the Swiss withdrew over some aspects of freedom of movement I believe. I assume this means we will now try to woo the Swiss.
The problem for the EU and those outside, is that the single market has become so valuable that the price of access to it becomes ever higher. Brussels do not want to sell it cheaply or to see unfair competition and those outside are not yet willing to pay the price.
There will be a lot of hard bargaining in the years ahead.
