Piers Morgan brilliantly confronts Anna Soubry over EU vaccine row – ‘You’d blame Brexit!’
Brexit: Anna Soubry predicts UK will be back in EU ‘in ten years’
The Good Morning Britain presenter took to Twitter on Saturday to launch a stunning attack on Brussels. Mr Morgan blasted the EU’s “shocking antics” after it moved to override part of the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland to block jabs entering the UK – which has sparked outrage from across the political spectrum.
The former newspaper editor tweeted: “Congrats to the EU on finally uniting Britain about Brexit.
“With their shocking antics over vaccines, they’ve managed to achieve the impossible and make us all – Leavers AND Remainers – think they’re a bunch of selfish, ruthless, arrogant twerps.”
But former Conservative MP Ms Soubry insisted the UK’s vaccine success – which has seen more than 8.3 million people receive their first shot and almost half a million get their second – was “nothing to do with Brexit”.
She fumed: “Reckon I speak for a fair few million … we never said the #EU was perfect indeed many of us believed it needed reforming but we believed we were considerably better off in it than out of it.
We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.
“And negotiating our own #CovidVaccine deals was nothing to do with #Brexit.”
Ms Soubry’s tweet prompted the GMB host to point out she would be blaming Brexit if the UK was as slow as the EU with its rollout.
Mr Morgan said: “If the situation was reversed and the EU was performing like the UK on its vaccine roll-out, and we were performing as badly as the EU is… then you would definitely be blaming Brexit.”
The EU has been criticised over its vaccine rollout and is facing supply issues.
Brussels on Friday night triggered Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to control the movement of coronavirus jabs.
But a huge backlash from London, Dublin and Belfast forced the bloc to backtrack on the extraordinary move.
The EU’s actions have even attracted criticism from the likes of arch-Remainer Tony Blair.
The former prime minister told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday it was “a very foolish thing to do”.
DON’T MISS
Tony Blair slams ‘very foolish’ EU over Brussels vaccine threat [VIDEO]
New freedoms allowed Britain to lead world with jabs – ANDREA LEADSOM [COMMENT]
Britain vaccine supply secure after Brusells U-turn on vaccine control [INSIGHT]
Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his “grave concern” to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen ahead of the bloc’s embarrassing U-turn.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said on Saturday that the EU recognises it “made a mistake”.
He said: “I think the EU recognises that they made a mistake in triggering Article 16, which would have meant the re-imposition of a border on the island of Ireland.
“I’ve spoken to the European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic about this and we both agreed that we need a reset, that we need to put the people of Northern Ireland first.”
Mr Gove said that the Government was “confident that we can proceed with our vaccine programmes exactly as planned” after talks between Mr Johnson and Ms von der Leyen.
The Cabinet minister added the UK is “fully on course” to hit its target of vaccinating the 15 million most vulnerable individuals by mid-February
The EU attempted to justify the drastic measure as being needed to prevent Northern Ireland being used as a back door to move coronavirus vaccines from the bloc into the UK, “due to a lack of supply threatening to disturb the orderly implementation of the vaccination campaigns in the member states”.
Source: Read Full Article