Just when you thought the Brexit negotiations couldn't get any worse, the Brexit secretary admits something so astonishing that it stops everyone in their tracks.
Speaking at the Tech Nation event in central London, Dominic Rabb, confessed that he had mistaken the importance of the trade route between Dover and Calais.
In his speech, the 44-year-old Tory MP said:
We want a bespoke arrangement on goods which recognises the peculiar, frankly, geographic economic entity that is the United Kingdom.
We are, and I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, if you look at the UK and look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.
And that is one of the reasons why we have wanted to make sure we have a specific and very proximate relationship with the EU to ensure frictionless trade at the border.
I don’t think it is a question so much of the risk of major shortages, but I think probably the average consumer might not be aware of the full extent to which the choice of goods that we have in the stores are dependent on one or two very specific trade routes.
Now, we hate to break it to you but it would appear that Mr Rabb was unaware that the UK was actually an island and that it's closest connection to mainland Europe was actually Calais.
This quite a stunning admission from the man who is supposed to be negotiating the UK's exit from the European Union, the deadline of which is due at the end of March 2019.
Given that the vast majority of the UK's trade will come from the port of Calais, including pharmaceutical goods and food (which there will be adequate supplies of) people have been left gobsmacked by Rabb's statement.
Remarkable that Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary and the UK's chief negotiator, is openly admitting "he hadn’t qu… https://t.co/Llj47evXcE— Shehab Khan (@Shehab Khan) 1541677434
A lot of people are making the joke that Rabb fundamentally didn't know that the UK was an island.
‘Dominic Raab discovers that England is close to France’ Could we put Brexit on hold while the Cabinet does GCSE geography?— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew Adonis) 1541683278
“Wait a minute” With mere weeks left to negotiate Brexit, Dominic Raab leaps to his feet and points at a big map. “WE’RE A FUCKING ISLAND”— James Felton (@James Felton) 1541674196
People had other suggestions of what Raab might only just be realising.
Dominic Raab: "Hadn't quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK & you look at how we trad… https://t.co/ezWEPQIbdm— Matt Thomas (@Matt Thomas) 1541679783
In Raab's defence, he only took over from David Davis as Brexit secretary since July and it isn't the first time that someone has made a statement along these lines.
800 years ago a chronicler described Dover Castle as 'the key to England'. Dominic Raab's hot take is (at least)… https://t.co/nHPkBXPpOJ— Dan Snow (@Dan Snow) 1541683554
We'll leave you with this expletive-filled rant on the issue from Chris Addison, who incidentally starred in The Thick of It, a series this moment appears to have been lifted directly from.
HT inews