Steps towards the breakthrough

December 1 – European Council president Donald Tusk warns Theresa May she must satisfy Irish demands that there will be no “hard border” between the Republic and the North if negotiations are to progress on to trading arrangements.

December 4 – Jean-Claude Juncker meets Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar minutes before meeting Mrs May, amid reports of a compromise to ensure there is no hard Irish border – a key demand by Dublin.

The Democratic Unionist Party rejects proposals which would have aligned regulations north and south and shifted Northern Ireland’s customs border to the Irish Sea.

December 6 – David Davis faces calls to resign as Brexit Secretary and be investigated for contempt of Parliament after he admits the Government has produced no impact assessments on the effect of Brexit on different sectors of the UK economy. He had earlier said his department was “in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses”.

December 7 – First signs of a breakthrough come at about 5pm with the announcement that Mr Tusk will make a statement on Brexit early on Friday morning. December 8 – Talks continue throughout night.

Mrs May arrives in Brussels shortly before 6am and talks with Mr Juncker begin.

Within minutes, Mr Juncker’s head of cabinet Martin Selmayr signals that a deal has been done as he tweets a photograph of white smoke gushing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel – the traditional way of alerting the world that a new Pope has been chosen.

Confirmation comes at 6.40am in a European Commission press release announcing that “sufficient progress” has been made in the first phase of Brexit talks.

Minutes later Mr Juncker and Mrs May appear together at a press conference to herald the deal, with the PM declaring it “a hard-won agreement in all our interests”. She says the agreement means the rights of three million EU citizens in the UK will be “enshrined in UK law and enforced by British courts”, and there will be “no hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

UK business leaders hail the breakthrough, but former Ukip leader Nigel Farage declares: “We can now move on to the next stage of humiliation.”