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EU efforts to meddle with/block vaccine exports to the UK could cause thousands of deaths, whilst failing to speed up their own programmes, which are already causing thousands more. You could call it death by petty bureaucracy. But some would consider it a hostile act.
Consider, for a second, the EU was pursuing a policy that was leading to the deaths of thousands of Chinese or US citizens. How do we think they might interpret it? And how do we think they might respond?
Especially taken into account these vaccines were obtained legally, at great additional cost to the taxpayer in order to safeguard people as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the EU machine freed ourselves from has been found wanting. Why should we pay for its mistakes?
If the UK is to actually be an independent actor, and wants to avoid being trampled on (not just by the EU, but bigger foes like China) it can’t just wring its hands when things like this happen and say “Oh, but they’re our partners, and they’re so big! What could we really do?”
There have to be red lines, and reprisals for crossing them. The nonsense about an EU ambassador should be firmly off the table for the time being — if only because if we’d recognised him, we would now surely be contemplating expelling him for what his ‘state’ is suggesting.
