WHERE IS JIM HACKER WHEN HE'S NEEDED ?

It's tempting to say that you couldn't make it up but, of course, someone did !

The reported 'sausage war' currently raging between the UK and EU seems like a surreal piece of nonsense that couldn' possibly be happening. That it was foreshadowed by an episode of the still quite brilliant "Yes, Minister", way back in 1984, demonstrates that fiction is not always stranger than fact.

In the final episode of "Yes Minister", the Minister for Administrative Affairs, Jim Hacker, looks for a way of raising his profile as he pursues promotion to No. 10. Hilariously, an opportunity is presented to him as the European Union is about to introduce new regulations regarding the definition of sausages; Hacker leaps on this move to claim that the nasty foreigners are threatening to outlaw the 'British Sausage', and his manoeuvering pays off as the final scenes of the episode see him achieving his goal.

Now no one is claiming that the EU is planning to ban British Sausages (yet) but it does seem that there are problems over the movement of goods of all sorts, sausages being used as a suitably ridiculous example, from the island of Great Britain to Northern Ireland. This is apparently a consequence of the "Northern Ireland Protocol", a cobbled together piece of the treaty that saw the United Kingdom, as a whole and including Norther Ireland, leave the European Union. 

This protocol was never going to be workable as it a) effectively partitioned the United Kingdom and b) kept Northern Ireland border arrangements under the control of the European Union. It seems highly likely that the protocol was as much about the ambitions of the Irish Republic as anything else, their hope being that it would help to pave the way for the eventual reunification of the 2 parts of the island of Ireland. However, others have also jumped on the opportunity to throw mud and threats at the UK, particularly the French and those at the highest levels of the EU itself who have still not forgiven the British for daring to leave their dictatorial and protectionist club. As for the French, they've always hated us and recent events over fishing rights around Jersey have probably inflamed this hatred still further; additionally, President Macron is in all sorts of trouble and faces an election next year, so any opportunity to bash the British will be grabbed with both hands as a potential vote-winning ploy.

And so we now have the "Sausage War". Residents of Northern Ireland are, reportedly, in danger of being deprived of supplies of the good old 'British Banger' as imports into the territory face so much red tape that companies are deciding not to bother. The UK is telling the EU to be realistic and flexible, the EU is telling the UK to be realistic and accept the rules they agreed to in the protocol. Failing an agreement, the EU is threatening to take legal action against the UK, all notionally because of the movement of sausages across the Irish Sea.

You couldn't make it up, except that Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn effectively did just that, more than 35 years ago. What we need now is a Jim Hacker, backed by his Humphrey Appleby, to win the day and save the "British Banger" !