In September 2015, Bojo appealed to his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni not to penalize the UK economically for its decision to leave the EU and that Britons drank about 300 million liters of Italian prosecco a year.
No Fizz, No Fish ‘n Chips
But this time, BoJo has managed to "insult" Italy during his trip to Europe after suggesting Italy should back his Brexit trade deal or face looking billions of sales of prosecco sparkling wine, Italy's economic development minister Carlo Calenda claims.
A fundamentally flawed argument anyway. Fish&Chips would be far beyond saleable long before it reached anywhere in the EU. #Boris #Prosecco pic.twitter.com/ftuPZ3ZrcY
— Alex Welsh (@MrWelshes) November 16, 2016
"His idea is, 'we want to have access to the common market without giving you access in terms of free circulation of people,' and I think this is wishful thinking," Calenda told Bloomberg TV.
"His answer was, 'Ok, but you are selling a lot of what we call prosecco in the UK… and you will allow us to do this because you don't want to lose prosecco exports.' "
Describing more details about his conversation with Mr. Johnson, Carlo Calenda revealed that he told Britain's foreign secretary:
"Maybe we're going to lose some prosecco; you're going to lose some fish and chips exports. The difference is I'm going to lose [exports] to one country, you to 27. Putting things on this level is a bit insulting."
Head very sore…had too much prosecco in Italy…think I may have insulted someone. Theresa furious.. Are 27 to 1 bad odds? #borisprosecco
— Bumbling Boris Diary (@Bumbling_Boris) November 17, 2016
As for Boris Johnson's record for putting his foot in it — whether it's over fizzy drinks or fish and chips and the UK's future Brexit trade deals, he believes Britain will make a "Titanic success" of it, prompting ridicule in the House of Commons from Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn ridicules Boris Johnson for saying government will make a “Titanic success” of Brexit — #PMQs pic.twitter.com/KpWMdyjGk8
— Stuart Thomson (@Redpolitics) November 16, 2016
The UK's Foreign Office defended Mr. Johnson's comments suggesting that, "the foreign secretary's comments reflect the strength of the trading relationship between the UK and Italy. We're looking to ensure this continues as we depart the EU."