Brussels must reel in maverick Macron

IS the EU a ‘rules-based’ organisation, or not? It purports to be, yet when one of its key member states drives a coach and horses through international law, it simply looks the other way.

Perhaps the european Commission hasn’t noticed that French president emmanuel Macron is gearing up for an illegal trade war on the UK. Maybe they secretly approve.

either way, it’s ironic that while they order us to stick to the letter of the ill-conceived Northern Ireland protocol, France puts the whole post-Brexit settlement at risk without a word of censure from Brussels.

The reason for their histrionics (not that they normally need much of an excuse) is ostensibly fish. even though we granted 98 per cent of the licences French trawlermen applied for to operate in British waters – refusing only those who couldn’t prove they had fished there previously – they accuse us of bad faith.

They have already impounded one Scottish trawler on dubious grounds and are threatening to deny all British boats access to their ports from tomorrow.

There is even talk of extending the blockade to lorries, and cutting energy supplies to the Channel Islands. In commercial terms, that would represent all-out war. For a handful of scallops!

While Mr Macron’s behaviour is absurdly disproportionate and resembles the footstamping of an over-indulged child, it cannot go unchallenged.

Boris Johnson has rightly played down the idea of aggressive reprisals. He still hopes for a grown-up settlement and says if that fails he will take legal action, rather than engage in gunboat diplomacy. At some point, those tactics may change.

There is far more at stake here than fish alone. Talks aimed at solving the dangerous impasse in Northern Ireland are at the most delicate stage.

Failure will seriously disrupt life there and could derail the Good Friday Agreement. Ultimately, Britain would be left with no choice but to invoke Article 16 and abandon the protocol altogether.

Yet still Mr Macron’s lieutenants (with one eye on next year’s presidential elections) actively encourage the Commission to take the most intransigent possible line ‘to show that it causes more damage to leave the EU than to stay in’. And they accuse us of bad faith! So now, Brussels must decide. Kow-tow to France and forfeit all credibility in future negotiations. Or act like the mature, rulesbased trading bloc they profess to be. The clock is ticking.