Published on 2 February 2021

From our special European correspondent Hieronymus Graf von Lupin-Bridgerton

EU officials moved today to close the Irish border in response to the shocking revelation that COVID-19 immunity can be passed person-to-person, from one who has received the vaccination to one who has not.

Tests carried out at Laboratoire Macaroonier in Paris showed immunity jumping across after just 30 minutes of close physical contact.

Head of Clinical Testing Dr Emmanuelle Kristel said: “The evidence is cristel-clear.”

Brussels officials were aghast. The Commission President Ernestine van den Lullen said: “The vaccine has contravened Article 5.1 of EU Regulation 2015/479; we must intervene immediately and invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol to prevent its escape from the Union. We can’t waste our vaccine on people in the Irish Republic only for them to go wandering into the North and giving it to people there”.

Her spokesperson, Erique Mamaire, went further: “Der Artikel 5.1 (no that’s Artickle, not Schlupp und Tuchel) gives the permissions for the preservatif of the Union from a critical situation. We must block the export of the vaccine whether inside or outside of natural legal persons”.

The Irish Taiosech was quoted as lending his support: “We fully endorse these measures. They are an essential contribution by the Republic to the intactness of the Union. We are discussing with the Commission the necessary waiver for the over-50s. We are planning to call it a Past-it Note”.

The Irish Foreign Minister, interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show for the BBC, echoed his boss: “I fully concur with his statement. Only an idiot could have designed these measures. We will resist them at all costs”.