FRENCH newspaper Le Figaro summed it up: Brexit 1..Brussels..0.
Bild in Germany went further, calling the EU’s disastrous vaccine deal a “declaration of bankruptcy”.
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Nothing highlights the inefficiency of the EU more than its abject failure to secure life-saving jabs for its citizens.
President Ursula von der Leyen’s bid to shut the Irish border and block vaccine exports reaching our shores was as short-lived as it was cynical, ending in one of the biggest climbdowns in EU history.
Brussels leaders have been rocked by the bare-faced attempt to save their own skins at the expense of British lives.
The Irish border starkly illustrates their incompetence.
Just two per cent of EU citizens in the Republic of Ireland have so far had the jab compared with 10 per cent in Northern Ireland.
Almost half a million Brits received the jab in the past 24 hours and more than eight million in total.
Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes courting Scotland’s return to the EU’s fold should take note.
And leaving the pandemic aside, also on the UK’s horizon is membership of a mega trading block which could open up global markets worth a total of £9trillion.
Brexit has given Britain a vital shot in the arm.
HIGH ST AND DRY
TIME is fast running out for our beleaguered high streets, crushed between ruinous lockdowns and the explosion of online shopping.
Alarming new figures show footfall last year dropped from 150 million shoppers in February to just 35 million by April.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak must throw town centres a lifeline in his Budget.
Online retailers like Boohoo, which last week swallowed up Debenhams, are interested in tiny overheads and sky-high profits, not bricks and mortar shops.
Mr Sunak must make them pay a bigger share of taxes for their vast income.
Then we can reinvest that in real shops.
A NOVEL WAY TO HELP
THOUSANDS of poorer children have gone without books during lockdown as schools and libraries have shut.
That’s why we are asking our readers to help by sending their old children’s books to charity BookTrust.
It will then send out new children’s books to schools and other distribution centres across Britain where they can be collected for locked-down youngsters.
Help if you can. Such a small gesture could transform a child’s life.
