Franco-British Relations Continue On Downward Spiral

Relations between London and Paris continue to deteriorate this morning, with the British Home Secretary Priti Patel uninvited to a ministers meeting in France that was due to discuss the migrant situation on the English Channel.

• This comes after UK PM Boris Johnson openly published a letter he had sent to French President Emmanuel Macron outlining five proposed steps he wanted to see implemented to alleviate the situation. 27 migrants died on Wednesday when an inflatable boat carrying them sank in the Channel.
• The ill-will between the two nations is not only due to the migrant crisis but a myriad of issues related to Brexit:
  • French fishing fleets continue to protest at what they say is an underallocation of fishing licences for access to British waters. Despite the minor nature of fisheries in both the French and British economies, the issue stirs up an outsized political reaction on both sides of the Channel.
  • The EU and UK remain at loggerheads over the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. Depending on how talks between the two sides progress, the UK could seek to disapply the protocol. This inevitably would have knock-on effects on EU-UK goods trade, the majority of which comes through French ports.