The PM’s push to quit the European single market has proved disastrous for Britain’s standing at the key moment of Cop26
As Boris Johnson stumbles from cliche to cliche in Glasgow, a boatload of French fishers are making a fool of him. Posing as a world leader, he pleads that the Earth is “at one minute to midnight”, and should raise its game in the last chance saloon. Yet he cannot stop France’s Emmanuel Macron taunting him over a few boat licences, any more than he can handle the consequences of the Northern Irish protocol, or exert influence over the truce between the European Union and the United States on steel tariffs.
Being outside the EU was meant to display Britain beating its chest across the Channel and round the world, raking in lucrative new trade. Instead at Cop26, China, Russia and India have all found better things to do than listen to Johnson’s tired metaphors amid piles of rain-soaked rubbish.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
