Twitter reacts to Boris Johnson’s Channel bridge proposal

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly raised the idea of building a bridge across the English Channel during Emmanuel Macron’s first official visit to the UK.

During a conversation with the French President, Johnson said it was “ridiculous” that the UK and France were only connected by the Channel Tunnel and suggested that a bridge could span the strait, the BBC reports.

Stressing the importance of “good connections” for Anglo-French trade and travel, the foreign secretary said the underground rail route that currently connects the two nations should be seen as the “first step”.

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Ian Frith, the former president of the Institution of Structural Engineers, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a bridge from the UK to France would be “a huge undertaking, but absolutely possible”.

The longest bridge over a body of water is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, Business Insider reports, stretching 23.79 miles. At it’s narrowest point, the Channel is just over 20 miles wide.

However, journalists and shipping experts were quick to point out the expense and impracticality that would hinder the ambitious vision:

While George Eaton, political editor at The New Statesman, saw an unfortunate metaphor for Brexit in the plan:

However, the French president “is understood to have responded positively with an agreement that a second link should be built”, The Guardian reports.

After agreeing a new treaty with Theresa May to speed up the processing of migrants at Calais, Macron capped off his visit with what the Daily Mail terms an “Oscars-style” selfie at a private reception at the Victoria and Albert museum in Kensington, attended by representatives of business, science, culture and sport from both sides of the Channel.