BOJO EMBARRASSES AGAIN

After last week where Liam Fox was accused of threatening EU members that South Korea might sue them (not us) because the EU will be smaller after brexit, Boris Johnson is now accused of insulting Italians by telling them if trade barriers are put in place they will not sell as much Prosecco (HERE).

Carlo Calenda, former Italian envoy to Brussels says Britain was in "chaos" over its position ahead of Brexit negotiations and said it was unacceptable for the European Union to be held to ransom over "an internal UK debate". He went on: "Somebody needs to tell us something, and it needs to be something that makes sense.

"You can’t say that it’s sensible to say we want access to the single market but no free circulation of people. It’s obvious that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever"

The Guardian claim BoJo was "ridiculed" (HERE) by Dutch finance minister and Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who said Johnson’s aims of leaving the customs union at the same time as securing immigration controls and maintaining access to the single market were not achievable.

Dijsselbloem told the BBC’s Newsnight: “I think he’s offering to the British people options that are really not available. For example, to say we could be inside the internal market but be outside the customs union, this is impossible, it just doesn’t exist. The opposite does exist. We have a customs union with Turkey but Turkey is not part of the internal market.

“He’s saying things that are intellectually impossible, politically unavailable, so I think he’s not offering the British people a fair view of what is available and what can be achieved in these negotiations.”