As Europe closes its borders to Britain, the French Government has banned freight traffic between the two countries leaving thousands of lorry drivers stranded on both sides of the Channel concerned they won’t make it home for Christmas and fueling the fire of concern that supplies of particularly fresh food will run dry over the festive period.
The pretext used has been the announcement of a ‘mutant’ strain of Covid 19, which while being the same as the normal virus in both effects and its lethality is said to be more transmissible. However, many see in especially the actions of the French Government, a desire to inflict a ‘punishment beating’ on Britain for Brexit and/or an attempt to secure extra leverage in the ongoing trade negotiations with the EU.
Nigel Farage is certainly one of those people. He said on Twitter that the EU could “go to hell”:
We are dealing with thugs and bullies who want to make us sign a bad deal.
Time to walk away, to hell with the EU. https://t.co/6LFjA3mvaq
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 20, 2020
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson used an address to the nation to say he had held “excellent” talks with Emmanuel Macron, the French President and he hoped the situation could be resolved “within hours” if possible.
