TinTin and the Brexit plan

ONE of Belgium’s best known literary characters, TinTin the allegedly racist and right wing creation of the writer Hergé was renowned for getting in and out of scrapes and back in January of this year, he became involved in Brexit.

An image of the front cover of a typical TinTin adventure was seen ’going the rounds’ on social media as an un-named ‘wag’ had created ‘TinTin and the Brexit Plan’ which showed the carrot haired young hero adrift at sea in a lifeboat with his dog Snowy and Captain Haddock who is warming himself in front of a wood fire that he had started.

Good for a chuckle as it suggested that Britain was all at sea and would self-destruct but according to a report in the Daily Telegraph a poster of the ‘book cover’ has been spotted on the wall of a room used by European Council’s Brexit negotiators.

Many in Brussels believe that Britain will be harming itself by leaving the Union and that seems to be reflected by comments from Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president who is quoted as telling German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that Britain has “the choice to eat what’s on the table or not come to the table at all.”

There are a number of less anti-British sentiments within the European Union, but the British team negotiating the exit will need to use all of their skills of diplomacy in order to try to secure a successful result.