Partners in Pragmatism

Despite being openly racist, anti-European and favourably inclined towards Russian gangsters, Marine Le Pen has somehow conceived the idea that Boris Johnson's Brexitannia might make her a credible ally. Like Winston Churchill and his present-day repetition-as-farce, Le Pen favours bilateral alliances forged through personal nods and winks between potentates of the master race. She is also gung-ho for the re-conquest of old empires, which in France's case would be mainly those uppity indochinois. If Le Pen were prepared to overlook the calculated insult to France by the Triple Alliance, this could dovetail nicely with the English-speaking peoples' policy of poking the Heathen Chinee with a sharp stick until something jolly occurs. Nevertheless, a former UK national security adviser and sock-puppet for Washington in Europe has delivered a stern rebuke, extolling the Special Atlanticist Dependence (SAD) and implying with almost equal realism that an attitude which is ignorant, superficial and misconceived as regards her country's place in the world might somehow be uncongenial to the régime in London.