Chris

It would have required a lot more goodwill than presently exists between London and Paris to concoct a mechanism that might make this look anything other than it is (namely, a thorough shafting). I woudn’t go so far as to suggest that this was a move calculated to remind the French that the world is bigger than the EU, but I’m quite sure the optics were well understood in Downing Street and that it didn’t stop them, or even slow them down.