analysis

Michel Barnier took exception to some UK MEPs describing his negotiating team as wanting a “pound of flesh” in revenge for Brexit.

He said words like “revenge” and “punishment” could not be further from his mind, but he rose to the bait exactly as planned.

Nigel Farage MEP is an able agitator, and he and his band of Ukip colleagues invoked the sort of language sports coaches use when they know their side has no talent.

All bravado, they say so little of substance, so little of use, that all they can do is quote Shakespeare and heckle when others offer solutions on how the mess that is Brexit – and it is a mess – is to be resolved.

The European Parliament was correct to identify the infighting in the Conservative Government as detrimental to the Brexit process.

MEPs queued up to deride Mrs May and her “clueless” Brexit strategy.

That pleas were given on the Strasbourg floor to Tory conference delegates in Manchester for some sort of stability seems to embody the general feeling across the Continent.

Not just that Brexit negotiations so far have been insufficient, but embarrassingly so.

Strasbourg’s grand parliamentary floor is a perfect symbol of the supposed layers of EU bureaucracy.

And yet one can’t help but leave with a sense of awe at the scale of what has been achieved in the years of the European project.

In Florence Mrs May said the UK has never truly felt part of the EU, but her sentiment fell on deaf ears among those who have only ever experienced life as European citizens.

The EU continues to stress that no trade deal is possible without agreement on citizenship, the Irish border and the financial settlement.

Surely the time of bluster and balderdash can be consigned to the side of the bus of history, and sensible, stable agreement and compromise, if Brexit is to go ahead, should be the priority.