Victorious Macron arrives at summit to accept Starmer's Brexit surrender

Telegraph

11 hours ago

In Emmanuel Macron's Brexit war with Britain, there could only ever be one winner.
Peace had to be bought with 12 years of British fish; a tribute surrendered by a Prime Minister who began reversing Brexit as soon as he got into office.
Now a satisfied 'Jupiter', as Mr Macron styles himself, will descend to the UK for a three-day state visit to reward Sir Keir Starmer.
He will find the time to meet Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey but has no plans to meet Nigel Farage, the architect of Brexit and leader of poll-topping Reform UK.
It would be a 'very pragmatic rapprochement', an Elysée official said of the first visit to Britain by an EU head of state since Brexit.
'Shared interests and re-convergence are the elements that most characterise the symbolism of the visit and the issues at stake at this Franco-British summit,' the official added.
Mr Macron was the bad cop of the Brexit negotiations. He never missed a chance to skewer the British for daring to quit the EU, which he declared a project led by 'liars'.
As relations plunged to sub-zero temperatures, French and British ships shadowed each other off the coast of Jersey in what became known as 'fish wars'.
Mr Macron's acolytes would later threaten to cut off energy supplies to the island, as reports emerged that the president called Boris Johnson a 'clown' and a 'knucklehead'.
There will be no such friction when Mr Macron meets the King, or when he addresses MPs and peers in Westminster later on Tuesday.
Why would there be? Mr Macron has got exactly what he wanted.
He became president two months after Britain triggered the Article 50 process to leave the EU, defeating Marine Le Pen in May 2017.
Ms Le Pen had gloried in Brexit and had promised a similar referendum if she won the race to the Elysée.
Mr Macron was determined to turn Brexit into a stick with which to beat his rival, in the five years before the 2022 presidential election.
For that to work, Brexit had to be a failure. Mr Macron set about making sure that happened and duly won his second battle against Ms Le Pen, who he warned was pursuing 'Frexit by stealth'.
Mr Macron sees his visit as the final piece of the UK's Reset with the EU. The first step was Sir Keir's hosting of the European Political Community (EPC) summit in July last year.
The EPC, a six-monthly meeting of EU and non-EU European leaders, was Mr Macron's brainchild.
Sir Keir used it to call for a Reset deal with Brussels. Paris describes London as having been a 'major partner' in the EPCs held since Sir Keir's election.
The EPC is part of Mr Macron's vision of a 'multi-speed Europe'. In it, non-EU countries to varying degrees orbit the core EU members, which are of course dominated by France.
In May this year, Sir Keir reached an agreement in principle on the reset with Brussels, which cements the UK's place in that orbit.
It included a defence pact, which formalised foreign policy and security co-operation and allowed for British involvement in EU defence spending programmes.
The UK has agreed to align with EU plant and animal health rules, becoming a rule-taker from Brussels, and signed away access to UK fishing waters for an astonishing 12 years.
The Reset agreement will 'resynchronise the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom', the Elysée said before his visit.
Fishermen matter in France. Mr Macron is so pleased with the coup he has finally agreed to do a deal allowing Channel migrants to be returned to France for the first time since Brexit.
For each migrant returned, Britain would take in an asylum seeker from France in the 'one in, one out' deal.
Hopes of announcing the agreement this week now look in doubt after other EU member states raised objections about the pact, fearing it meant they would have to take back more migrants from France.
The world is now a different place from the height of Brexit. A real war has made the Brexit wars appear insignificant.
Britain and France, Europe's two nuclear powers and members of the UN Security Council, can no longer afford to be at daggers drawn.
The war in Ukraine, and questions over Donald Trump's commitment to the security of Europe, have forced France and Britain back together again.
A lame duck at home with a minority government, Mr Macron can now only spread his wings in foreign policy and defence – two major themes of the Anglo-French summit.
Mr Macron and Sir Keir have spearheaded the coalition of willing nations to support Kyiv and have been interceding in Volodymyr Zelensky's favour with the US president.
Mr Macron will lay a wreath at the statue of Sir Winston Churchill before doing the same at the statue of General Charles de Gaulle at Carlton Gardens, which was his wartime headquarters during the occupation of France.
The choreography of the first day of the state visit recognises the shadow of war looming over Europe by paying tribute to each country's greatest leaders.
But Paris still insists on conditions and restrictions on British involvement in EU defence schemes, or insisting that EU arms companies get preferential treatment in the initiatives.
Mr Macron may not like Brexiteers like Mr Farage or the 'clown' Mr Johnson. But he is every bit as intent on having his cake and eating it.