OPEN ALL HOURS: The country that famously took back control of its borders is now complaining at France. This is because it wants France to control their border, to stop people noticing that it didn’t really take back control.
Or rather, it did, but couldn’t be bothered to actually put in the necessary work. Equally famously, the country employed a Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, to sort out all the problems with smelly migrants. Alas, he is so Clandestine that he has disappeared in a puff of smoke.
This leaves rentagobshite Nigel Farage, who unfortunately hasn’t disappeared in a puff of smoke, to shout impotently into the void instead. In Brexit Britain, this apparently passes as policy these days.
This leads to column inches in the more intolerant press. They continue to churn our sensational headlines to enrage people who neither live near the coast, nor have ever encountered any problems with incomers.
“Les Anglais ‘ave a certain je ne sais quoi,” remarked French border controller Paul de Otherone. “They ‘ave plenty of chutzpah, but no schadenfreude. Something ‘as got lost in the translation, je pense.”
It’s a bit rich asking the French to control our border for us, isn’t it, asked LCD Views in perfect Franglais.
“If Les Anglais cannot stop boats crossing La Manche, it is not our fault,” said de Otherone, with a Gallic shrug. “C’est la vie, n’est pas? But we Francais, we ‘old all the cards. And once the boats leave the EU, there is no need to ‘ave them back. I ‘ate to ‘ave to say it, but Les Francais, we fart in your general direction.”
This leaves the UK blowing in the wind, its policy in tatters, its border as secure as a pair of Farage’s discarded Union Jack underpants.
No policy is better than a bad policy. This is where we are now. Border means border.