We took back control... and came out ahead of ‘shambolic’ Eurocrats

HOW FAR away those Brexit deadlock days feel now when rattled British ministers would stand next to the sleek and imperious EU negotiator Michel Barnier to be warned that “the clock is ticking”.

Thanks to the brilliant work of Kate Bingham and her Vaccine Task Force, Britain is in a commanding position when it comes to inoculating its citizens against Covid.

By not participating in the EU’S vaccine project we took back control and used that freedom to come out ahead.

In contrast, the situation across the Channel is shambolic.

Supply shortages mean that vaccination programmes which were already lagging are having to be further slowed or even suspended altogether.

The failure of Eurocrats to source and secure sufficient vaccine doses has led to meltdown at the European Commission, an organisation that will happily tolerate appearing aloof or arrogant but detests giving the impression of chaos. Right across Europe the heat is on governments to explain why the vaccine stock cupboards are bare just as the virus is taking off again in Portugal, Spain and France in particular.

And national politicians are piling pressure on the Commission to rectify things. France and Germany have resorted to bad-mouthing Britain’s most plentiful vaccine – the one produced by Oxford University and Astrazeneca – with President Macron making baseless allegations that it will be “quasiineffective” on the over-65s. The laughable pettiness of his response was underlined in Brussels on Friday when a desperate Commission tried to bully Astrazeneca into diverting stocks from its UK supply line.

After drawing up a bizarre plan for a possible blockade against Pfizer Biontech shipping legally contracted supplies of its jab from Belgium to Britain, the Commission went into total meltdown by triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Brexit deal, effectively imposing a hard border on the island of Ireland.

In chaotic scenes late on Friday that decision was reversed before it had been implemented – but not before the government of Ireland was humiliated when it emerged they had not even been told what was to happen.

The Commission’s later claim that it had been a misunderstanding on the part of an official who had not appreciated the implications of tampering with borders in Ireland merely dragged it further into derision.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson maintained a statesmanlike stance, using measured language to dissuade it from its reckless course in Ireland.

Ms Bingham’s uncanny ability to pick winners means there is every chance that by early summer the UK may be in the happy position of having offered jabs to its entire adult population and yet having huge vaccine stockpiles to spare.

The right thing to do then will be to send some of those batches of spare jabs to the EU and smile serenely as we are thanked through gritted teeth.