Johnson and Biden ‘astonished’ at Macron
PM tells French president to ‘get a grip’ over his reaction to Australia-uk-us pact
BORIS JOHNSON and Joe Biden privately expressed astonishment at France’s heated reaction to the Australia-uk-us pact, as the Prime Minister urged Emmanuel Macron to “get a grip”.
Mr Johnson and the US President are understood to have discussed their surprise when they met on Tuesday for talks in the White House.
Yesterday Mr Johnson deployed “franglais” and told the French to “prenez un grip and donnez-moi un break” over the row, roughly translated as “get a grip and give me a break”.
He later said he was “taken aback” by Mr Macron’s response, which included withdrawing ambassadors from the US and Australia.
Last night, there were suggestions that the French could withdraw from Nato’s integrated military command.
Speaking about the diplomatic row, Mr Johnson said: “There are no easy ways of having these conversations. It’s a very human thing to delay the frank conversation until the last possible moment.
“I don’t know if anyone has been in that situation in their emotional life but it’s very human to put it off.
“Everybody has been a bit taken aback by the strength of the French reaction and we all want to reach out to Paris and sort something out.”
Plans are now being pursued to deepen the three-way defence pact, beyond just nuclear submarines, in spite of French opposition, with trade and intelligence two possible avenues.
In parts of the Government there is a belief that the French are exaggerating their anger at the new pact for potential financial reasons. Submarine contracts worth tens of billions of pounds between France and Australia were torn up when Canberra sided with the UK and US. Legal wrangling over compensation is expected.
Discussing the diplomatic row with reporters as a four-day US trip neared its end, Mr Johnson appeared to liken the French anger to that seen at the end of a personal relationship.
Yesterday, Mr Biden talked to Mr Macron, the French president, for the first time since the three-way Aukus defence pact was signed.
After the conversation, the White House said that France’s ambassador to Washington, who had been recalled amid the rift, would be returning to the US capital next week.
A joint statement issued after the call suggests Mr Biden sought to defuse tensions with his French counterpart.
“The two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefited from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners,” it read.
Mr Biden is expected to meet Mr Macron during a visit to Europe in late October. Mr Macron may meet Mr Johnson around the same time, given the G20 gathering in Italy in late October.
French ministers have described the Aukus deal as a “stab in the back” and Britain as a “fifth wheel” to America and Australia and a “vassal” of the US.
Mr Johnson has in recent days declared that the deal is not meant to be “exclusive” and he remains full of “love” and friendship for France, stressing the importance of the relationship.
Yet it emerged yesterday that Aukus, which helps Australia gain nuclearpowered submarines, could become a much wider agreement than now.
It is understood the UK and US are discussing whether to reach new deals
‘Everybody has been a bit taken aback by the strength of the French reaction and we all want to reach out to Paris’
on intelligence, deterrence of threats, free trade and human rights.
Mr Johnson and Mr Biden are understood to have agreed that the French will not be allowed to join the agreement, despite public insistence the deal is not exclusionary.
Mr Johnson met Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, for dinner in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night when they discussed the importance of the new pact.
It is possible that the three world leaders – Mr Johnson, Mr Biden and Mr Morrison – could hold future joint meetings and summits, though no new meetings have yet been agreed.
Conversations about the details of how to expand Aukus are ongoing and understood to be at an early stage.
The three-way partnership is part of the UK’S “tilt” to the Indo-pacific and is widely seen as a way to counter the growing influence of China in the region, though Mr Johnson has attempted to play this down as a motive.
In France, there was no official reaction to Mr Johnson’s franglais comments.
In a sign that Mr Macron’s government is feeling the heat over the submarine affair, Florence Parly, his defence minister, was briefly booed during an exchange with senators.
Meanwhile, Mr Macron faced opposition calls at home to leave Nato’s integrated military command, which France rejoined in 2009 some 43 years after Charles de Gaulle pulled the country out and evicted US military personnel from French soil and closed US bases.
Asked whether it should remain in the structure, Ms Parly this week told senators: “We are in the process of weighing up our options regarding our different partners.”
Pascale Boniface, the director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, said: “If Emmanuel Macron gets something from the United States and manages to save face, the French will be grateful to him. If he gets nothing, it will be detrimental to him.”
Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, appeared to weigh in against the French yesterday by saying Aukus was not grounds for a dispute. She said: “In relation to the discussions that are taking place right now in Europe, I experience Biden as being very loyal to the transatlantic alliance.”
‘I don’t see the green movement as a pretext for a wholesale assault on capitalism’
‘We have the technology, we have the choice before us … we are awesome in our power to save ourselves’
BORIS JOHNSON last night told world leaders that Kermit the Frog was “wrong” to say it is not easy being green.
The Prime Minister used a landmark speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York to make the argument for nations radically escalating action to curb climate change.
It was his last major intervention on the world stage before Britain hosts the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow, which starts at the end of next month. Mr Johnson warned fellow leaders that “our grandchildren will know that we are the culprits”, if they fail to take urgent moves to prevent “desertification, drought, crop failure, and mass movements of humanity on a scale not seen before”. He added: “They will ask what kind of people we were to be so selfish and so short sighted.”
In a bid to reassure developed nations that state interventions on climate change do not entail abandoning market economics, he said: “I don’t see the green movement as a pretext for a wholesale assault on capitalism.”
He added that he was “not one of those environmentalists” who takes “a moral pleasure in excoriating humanity for its excess”. On a lighter note, he deployed colourful language and invoked a Muppets character to argue that combating global warming did not have to be tough: “When Kermit the Frog sang It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green, I want you to know he was wrong.”
Painting a positive picture of the options available to countries to become greener, he said: “We have the technology: we have the choice before us … We are awesome in our power to change things and awesome in our power to save ourselves.”
Every day green start-ups are producing new ideas, he said, highlighting initiatives to feed seaweed to cows to restrain their traditional signs of digestive approval and to use AI and robotics to enhance food production.
“It is these technological breakthroughs that will cut the cost for consumers, so that we have nothing to fear and everything to gain from this green industrial revolution,” he said.
He stressed that nations had time left until Cop26 to decide whether to follow such a path, as he set out his hope that it would prove a “coming of age” moment for the world.
The speech, which completed his four-day trip to the United States, came after President Biden delivered a boon to Mr Johnson by pledging to double America’s cash pledge for the climate summit.
Hopes for significant progress at the meeting were raised further after President Xi Jinping issued a promise yesterday that China would not build new coal-fire projects abroad in future, a move that could be critical in tackling global emissions.
Mr Johnson paid tribute to Beijing for the vow in his speech, saying: “I thank President Xi for what he has done to end China’s international financing of coal and I hope China will now go further and phase out the domestic use of coal as well, because the experience of the UK shows it can be done.”
The Prime Minister’s slogan for Cop26 is “coal, cars, cash, trees”, as he urges developed nations to phase out coal by 2030 and developing countries to follow suit by 2040.
Ending the era of fossil fuel-powered vehicles, delivering $100 billion (£73 billion) in climate finance per year for developing countries, and halting deforestation by 2030 are the other key aims.
Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, will also use a speech today to warn that time is running out to act on the climate emergency, which will have devastating effects on the city. He will say the capital is at a crossroads, as he launches a London-wide environmental campaign, ahead of the expansion of the ultra low emission zone in the city.
It comes as analysis suggests rising temperatures could make the Tube potentially unbearably hot for more than a month a year. A quarter of London’s rail stations are now at high risk of flooding, and this summer parts of the city were hit by flash floods.
City Hall analysis also shows one in five schools, and nearly half of London’s hospitals, are at risk of flooding, and 200,000 homes and workplaces are at medium or high risk of surface water floods.