Has crumpled DD’s infuriating banter started to get to male model Michel?
MONSIEUR Brussels tried to come over all superieur with us yesterday. It was the second update on the Brexit independence negotiations (our version, if you like, of India’s independence talks in the mid 1940s).
Michel Barnier, head of the European Commission team, kept saying he wanted the British to be more clear about what we want.
‘We shall make better progress when our respective positions are clear,’ he said loftily. ‘Clarification of the UK position is indispensable. What we want is an orderly withdrawal.’
Ooh, I dunno. From the British perspective, ‘orderly’ could well mean a strait-jacket. You don’t want to get too orderly with Euro-imperialist control freaks. Orderly is their word for ‘do it by our rules’. Disorderly looks a much better position for London just at present. Keep the voracious power gobblers in the dark.
It was almost lunchtime in Brussels and M Barnier was standing alongside our Brexit Secretary, David Davis. Both have grey hair. But where DD is often wry and untidy, a self-teasing ambler, M Barnier is a gorgeous snoot, deliciously alive to his own magnificence. Tall and slender, he speaks at a stately pace, rubbing his hands and moving his long, tanned fingers with the poise of an actor. In another life he could have been a male model for Dormeuil suits or one of those adverts for late middleage laxatives.
He opened proceedings by saying he wanted clarification on how much money we were going to pay to leave the EU, on citizens’ rights and on Ireland.
The EC people are very keen to extract an agreement to the principle that we will actually cough up billions of euros as we leave – even though they arguably owe us billions. DD is not yet caving in. He talked about our ‘rights and responsibilities’ and said he ‘did not recog- nise’ the phrase ‘net flow’ of money. The loot is what the Europeans are really anxious about. By way of leverage, they put up a lot of stuff about how we will have to submit to European Court of Justice rulings even after we have left the EU.
Mr Davis, perhaps knowing it was a floater, seemed happy to let M Barnier bang on about that at length. ‘It is not a political point, it is a legal one,’ claimed Barnier – as if law is not political!
The stress on Ireland felt odd. For a century, Anglo-Irish relations have been handled pretty well by London and Dublin. Now we have Continentals wading into this most delicate of areas. Were I Irish (which I am, a bit – ancestors in hairy Co Cavan) I would feel indignant that my sovereignty was being appropriated by Europeans. How can Europeans, however well-meaning, possibly have as good an understanding of the way we residents of Britain and Ireland amiably co-exist?
M Barnier had opened his remarks by telling reporters ‘thank you for your patience, which is a critical virtue for any negotiation’. At this, DD piped up: ‘Particularly for us!’ Cue a faint pause (wince?) from Michel the mannequin. YET
as M Barnier started to complain about the lack of ‘soobstans’ in the British position, one gained the impression that his own patience, for all the boutique mannerisms, was starting to fray a little. He was eager for the British to give him ‘ a global picture’. He wanted ‘legal certainty’. Agreement could ‘not be achieved through incremental steps’.
Was that perhaps the start of a slight twitch in one eye? Has crumpled DD with his infuriating banter, his airy ‘it’ll be all right on the night’ optimism, started to get to smoothie Michel?
They are dead keen on pinning us down. DD – whose job is not made any easier by our appeasing Chancellor – is right to be evasive. For as M Barnier conceded near the end, ‘negotiations are only just starting’. He added: ‘I know we have to compromise in negotiations. We are not there yet.’
Carry on stalling, Mr Davis.