Space oddity

The EU’s vindictive, petty behaviour since the 2016 referendum has validated Brexit. Take the satellite navigation system known as Galileo. We’ve already provided £1.2 billion towards the project and, having the only serious military other than France’s and by far the most advanced private sector tech industry, we’re the European country most likely to exploit it properly.

And yet the European Commission has the nerve to say that it might damage security for us to remain involved – as if Brexit meant we had defected to China – and is threatening to cut us out. Any serious person upon hearing this has to conclude that the EU is not only now definitively anti-British, but willing to sacrifice its own wellbeing to make a childish point.

Thankfully, the UK Government has decided to start working towards a British alternative in the next few days. It is vital that this be presented as an opportunity, a display of Britain’s capabilities to the rest of the world, proof that we will become an even more global, pro-business economy after we leave. The Galileo payload was developed in the UK, so this is our technology the Europeans are exploiting.

Britain has always stood out in this sector for being the most pro-market and the least interventionist: our space industry is dominated by profit-making broadcasting and communications. In other words, this is one of many areas in which the pro-EU propaganda is quite wrong. Britain will flourish when our separation from Brussels is finalised. Indeed, the Eurocrats are going to miss sorely our money and expertise.