Tormented May ‘begged’ Juncker for Brexit deal
Leaked report claims Brussels trip was ‘stagemanaged to avoid opening the door to Boris’
TO THE watching world, Theresa May appeared to have every reason for optimism when she returned from the EU summit in Brussels last Friday.
After weeks of tense behind-thescenes negotiations, European leaders had offered her hope – in public at least – that the deadlock in Brexit negotiations would be broken by December.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said she was “encouraged” by progress, while Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said suggestions that talks were deadlocked had been “exaggerated”.
In a carefully choreographed show of unity the Prime Minister was even photographed sharing a joke with Mrs Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
But the cross-channel entente was nothing more than an illusion, according to a new account of the summit and of a private dinner between Mrs May and Jean-claude Juncker, the European Commission president, published in a German newspaper.
Written by the journalist who printed highly embarrassing details of Mrs May’s dinner with Mr Juncker in April, it painted a portrait of a “despondent” Prime Minister “begging” for help, her eyes ringed with dark shadows, with a temper ready to snap at any moment.
Until yesterday, the only public detail on the dinner was a subdued, four-line joint statement in which both sides pledged to “accelerate” talks.
The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung obtained a very different version of events, apparently from sources close to Mr Juncker.
According to the leaked account of the dinner, held four days before the summit, Mrs May “begged” Mr Juncker for help and told him that her “friends and enemies are breathing down her neck, waiting for her to fall”.
Mrs May told Mr Juncker that she had taken a significant “risk” by calling for a two-year transition period during which the status quo would remain after Brexit, and highlighted the fact she has already committed €20billion to Brussels.
“She had no room for manoeuvre, said May – so the Europeans would have to make it for her,” the article said.
Mr Juncker told colleagues that Mrs May “seemed anxious, despondent and discouraged”, like a “woman who hardly dares trust anybody, but is not ready to break free”.
Her facial expressions, Mr Juncker is reported to have said, “spoke volumes”.
“Anyone can see: May is branded by the struggle with her own party. She has dark rings under her eyes. She looks like some one who gets no sleep at night. You seldom see her laughing, clearly it must be for the photographers. But she looks tormented.
“In the past, May used to really burst out laughing, her whole body would shake. Now it takes all her strength not to lose her temper.”
The briefing amounted to a character assassination. It said that far from being part of a “charm offensive”, Mrs May had requested the dinner at the last minute as a “call for help”.
Her demands for progress in talks, however, were ignored because Mrs Merkel, Mr Macron and Mr Juncker are all refusing to act unless Mrs May commits to a significant Brexit divorce bill.
“The Europeans are only too aware of the dire situation of the British – it is their greatest leverage in the negotiations,” the article said.
“That’s why Merkel, Macron and Juncker did not allow themselves to be softened.”
The article confirmed that the “real hurdle is money”, with the European Commission demanding €60 billion and the European Council €90billion.
However, it claimed that European leaders decided that “Mrs May’s defeat had to be packaged nicely” in order to avoid undermining the Government.
There are significant fears in Brussels that negotiations could become far more difficult if Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, becomes Prime Minister. “Better to negotiate with a realistic May than with the dream-chaser Johnson,” the article says.
During their public show of unity for the cameras, the article said, Mrs May, Mrs Merkel and Mr Macron were in fact talking about the Iran nuclear deal.
The toxic briefing was particularly significant because the newspaper in which it was published is taken seriously in Downing Street.
Earlier this year it published a highly-detailed account of a summit between Mrs May and Mr Juncker, allegedly leaked by Martin Selmayr, Mr Juncker’s chief of staff, known in Brussels as the “Monster at the Berlaymont”.
The Prime Minister put that leak at the heart of her disastrous snap election campaign, saying that the UK’S negotiating position had been deliberately “misrepresented in the continental press” and attacking “Brussels bureaucrats” seeking to threaten and undermine Britain. Yesterday morning, the hostilities were reignited.
Nick Timothy, Mrs May’s former chief of staff, took to Twitter to publicly accuse Mr Selmayr of briefing the German press.
“After constructive Council meeting, Selmayr does this,” he said.
“Reminder that some in Brussels want no deal or a punitive one”.
In an extraordinary riposte, Mr Selmayr said that he and the EU were being “framed”. He even hinted that the leak had come from Mrs May’s critics in Britain.
He said: “This is false. I know it doesn’t fit your cliché, Nick Timothy, but Juncker and I have no interest in weakening PM.
“I deny that 1/we leaked this; 2/ Juncker ever said this; 3/we are punitive on Brexit. It’s an attempt to frame EU side and to undermine talks.”
Downing Street yesterday declined to comment but Government sources were not surprised by the leak.
Mr Juncker yesterday said he was “shocked” by the report. “Nothing is true of this,” he said. “I had an excellent working dinner with Theresa May. She was in good shape, she was not tired, she was fighting as is her duty so everything for me was OK.”
The damage, however, may have already been done.
‘In the past, May used to really burst out laughing, her whole body would shake. Now it takes all her strength not to lose her temper’