THE ITALIAN JAB!

We are the Self-Vaccination Society. So let’s grab...

NO ONE should be surprised at the shameful behaviour of Eurocrats over the corona vaccine. They were always going to revert to type.

Some of us have been telling you for decades that the European Union is a corrupt, incompetent, anti-democratic protection racket. That’s partly why 17.4 million voted Leave in 2016.

After the EU’s outrageous attempts to ban vaccine exports to Britain, even once- devoted Remainers admit that, on balance, we’re better off out. The Brussels bureaucracy is the original SelfPreservation Society. Political posturing and saving face always takes precedence, even over protecting their own citizens.

They are wedded to ponderous, pettifogging processes designed to reinforce the sacred project of ever- closer union, not serve the individual needs of 27 different member countries.

So it was inevitable they would make a complete oreille de cochon of Covid-19. There’s no need for me to revisit every widely reported cough and spit of the European Commission’s monstrous mismanagement of this crisis.

As the Mail said yesterday, the EU is acting like a rogue state, not a family of nations. The Commission has been prepared to rip up international law and ride roughshod over commercial contracts.

In a fit of pique, which has blown up in their faces, European leaders cynically trashed the perfectly safe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, scaring millions of their own people into refusing it. Heaven knows how many Covid victims will die unnecessarily as a direct consequence.

THE leaders of the European Commission should be arrested, charged with conspiracy to commit corporate manslaughter and put on trial in cages at the International Court in the Hague — like one of those famous Mafia show trials in Sicily.

Throughout, they have tried to demonise post- Brexit Britain to distract attention from their own leaden- footed failure to secure enough vaccines for their own population.

First, they tried to shut the Irish border, in contravention of both the Brexit withdrawal deal and the Good Friday Agreement. When that backfired they moved to stop the export of millions of doses manufactured at a factory in Belgium, part- financed by Britain and set up with British expertise. They’re also seeking to halt exports from another plant in the Netherlands.

This week, Brussels ordered a smash-and-grab raid on a factory in Italy, which was suspected of sending AstraZeneca vaccines to the UK. It was reported that officers discovered 29 million doses ready to be shipped to Britain.

Turns out not a single vial was coming our way. It was all destined for other EU nations and parts of the Third World, under the international COVAX scheme, designed to expedite drugs to poorer countries.

But such is the level of antiBritish paranoia in Brussels, the EU has gone on a vaccine war footing. The most ludicrous aspect of all this is that there are tens of millions of AstraZeneca jabs sitting in fridges across the EU, ready and waiting to be injected.

Yet because of the unwarranted scare campaign stirred up by their leaders, thousands of people across Europe are saying ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the AZ vaccine. They’d rather take their chances.

Some desperate EU countries are already turning to Russia for supplies of the Sputnik vaccine. Good luck with that.

Russian technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Sputnik jab shares its name with the first Russian space satellite, which orbited for three weeks before the batteries ran out and it plummeted back to Earth. Call me risk-averse, but I’d rather stick with the Oxford vaccine. If it’s good enough for Chief Inspector Morse, it’s good enough for me. We are assured that despite Brussels’ obstructionism, Britain will have more than adequate supplies of the AZ jab to complete the vaccination programme on schedule.

But what if those Italian stockpiles had been bound for the UK? How would we beat the blockade?

Fortunately, there are some areas where Britain still leads the world. Daylight robbery, for instance. We have the expertise to recover the goods. We could send for Charlie Croker and his boys to intercept The Italian Jabs as they leave the factory.

With a trio of red, white and blue Mini Coopers and a vintage Harrington Legionnaire coach, we could liberate what is rightfully ours from under the noses of the Italian carabinieri and the EU Cosa Nostra.

Provided the chaps remember that they are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off and take it easy on the bends, they could be back in Blighty before the bureaucrats in Brussels had finished their subsidised lobster suppers. Altogether now:

We are the Self-Vaccination Society . . .