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Boris Johnson tried to sell Global Britain at the G7 summit at the weekend, but was besieged by troubles on all sides. He and his fellow leaders were criticised for not doing enough to vaccinate the peoples of poorer countries around the world.
His grandiose claims of post-Brexit trade deals have amounted to little more so far than copying and pasting the deals we had as a member of the EU. And Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen lined up to accuse him of playing fast and loose with the Good Friday Agreement by demanding a renegotiation of Northern Ireland’s trade rules.
Nor is that all. Extinction Rebellion gathered in Cornwall to protest against the summit’s failure to take more dramatic action on the climate emergency. As the first in-person summit of world leaders, they and their entourages arrived by climate-destroying planes – including Mr Johnson himself, who could have taken the train from London.
In the background there was the rumbling row over the cut to the UK’s foreign aid budget – although the leaders of most G7 countries, which still spend a smaller proportion of their national incomes on aid, may not want to mention that.
In many of these issues, there is the question of what Mr Johnson called the “indestructible relationship” between the US and the UK – although President Biden continues to refer to the “special relationship” even after we discovered that Mr Johnson thought the phrase made the UK look “needy and weak” (a Redfield & Wilton poll suggested that half the British public agree with him – a quarter disagree and a quarter have no opinion).
The summit wrapped up yesterday and President Biden met the Queen before flying on to a Nato meeting in Brussels. Now it is time to assess the significance of the whole thing.
I will be here at 4pm today to answer your questions. If you have a question, submit it now, or when I join you live at 4pm on Monday (14 June).
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