Brexit “sausage war” tensions were heightened over the weekend after French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Northern Ireland was not a part of the UK.
On the sidelines the G7 Saturday, Macron and Johnson discussed new trading rules that will, from July, prevent the shipment of chilled meat from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
When Johnson asked Macron how he would feel if the French courts stopped Toulouse sausages from being sent to Paris, Macron reportedly responded by saying it was not a fair comparison because Paris and Toulouse were part of the same country.
An irritated Johnson is said to have shot back with: “Northern Ireland and Britain are part of the same country as well.”
PM ramps up 'sausage wars' after Macron says Northern Ireland not part of UK https://t.co/zKe5COpJwy
— Sun Politics (@SunPolitics) June 12, 2021
Trade deal under threat
The row over the new controls to be imposed in the Irish Sea has pushed Johnson to the brink of suspending the Northern Ireland Protocol, a key plank of the UK’s post-Brexit trading relations.
The protocol has kept the province of Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs union, creating a regulatory border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Much is being made of Macron’s “banger clanger” in the British press, with reports that Johnson was left feeling “furious” and “offended”.
Following the exchange Johnson said the EU needed to “get it into their heads” that Northern Ireland was a part of the UK.
Row continues
Meanwhile on Sunday British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that Macron’s comments demonstrated a failure to understand the facts.
“We wouldn't talk about Catalonia and Barcelona, or Corsica in France in those ways,” he said.
The Elysée Palace confirmed that tense words were exchanged between Macron and Johnson, but disputed the account of the conversation.
“The president said that Toulouse and Paris were part of a single geographic area and that Northern Ireland was on an island,” a spokesperson said.
