Ignore the bluster, what matters is achieving Brexit
YOU don’t usually look to the minutes of a gathering of bureaucrats for toe-curling embarrassment. But the official report of July’s meeting of the European Commission is certainly headline grabbing.
For a start, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is reported to have mocked David Davis, saying he lacked “stability and accountability” and attacking his “apparent lack of involvement” in the Brexit talks, which he said “risked jeopardising the negotiations”.
This is a reference to Mr Davis’s absence from some of the negotiation sessions but this criticism is bizarre. When a treaty of any kind is negotiated it’s civil servants and junior ministers who conduct the dayto-day meetings while Cabinet ministers set strategy and oversee the direction of talks.
It’s all very embarrassing for Brussels and particularly for the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who was at the meeting with Mr Juncker.
When the minutes were released Mr Barnier went out of his way to make clear that the comments were not his view. He said: “Seven days ago exactly we arrived at the end of the third round of negotiations and David Davis was standing here and I paid tribute to his professionalism and the competence of the whole of the UK team.”
Mr Juncker’s inflammatory comments are certainly eyecatching but before we get too caught up with them we must put them in context.
THROUGHOUT the Brexit process we’ve seen froth and spin fill the airwaves. In reality this is all the minutes represent. Other than the official papers put forward by both sides there has been very little of actual substance so far which is to be expected. If you’re serious about negotiating you don’t do it through the media.
The truth is that, entertaining as Mr Juncker’s words are, we should ignore them, just as we should ignore the constant Brussels spin about the imminent collapse of the talks and the chaos of the negotiations. It’s all meaningless.
Only one thing matters after we voted to leave and we gave