At last we have reached an agreement. We’ve agreed to meet again
As she shook hands with Jeanclaude Juncker, Theresa May did something strange. She didn’t smile blandly, as political leaders normally do when posing for photographs with a foreign counterpart. Instead, she glowered at Mr Juncker, and lowered her head in the manner of a stag in the rutting season, ready to lock horns.
The photographers snapped delightedly away. This, without question, was going to be the big picture for the papers back home.
It didn’t take a veteran of Bletchley Park to decode the message that the Prime Minister was attempting to convey.
The only question was: had she dreamt up the idea on the spot, moments before her arrival in Brussels? Or had she practised the pose in the mirror the night before, while a team of her most senior advisers offered suggestions and encouragement?
“Excellent stuff, Prime Minister. Very intimidating. Yes, these photos will reassure the voters that you won’t let those Eurocrats push you around. Just one thought: could you try it again, but without the teeth? And maybe lose the growling?”
“Really? I thought the teeth and the growling worked quite nicely. Oh well. If I’m not going to do the teeth and the growling, I suppose I might as well not bother smearing my mouth with this fake blood.”
Beforehand, voters might have been under the impression that yesterday’s meeting would be crucial, even decisive – a milestone moment in Brexit, during which Mrs May would unveil a radical breakthrough that would solve the Irish border problem, and satisfy hardliners on every side.
As it turned out, however, no such brainwave was even proposed, let alone accepted. The only thing that Mrs May and Mr Juncker agreed was to meet again at the end of February
– a mere month before Brexit is due to take place. And that’s what she got out of her big meeting – another meeting.
After which, perhaps, there’ll be another. Meeting after meeting after meeting, each of which will produce nothing but an agreement to hold one more. And on it will go, until the day, not long from now, when Mrs May stands up in the Commons, announces that there’s no time left to pursue any other course, and explains to MPS that they therefore have a simple choice: accept the deal that she and the EU agreed months ago, or face no deal and all its consequences. At which point, she presumably forecasts, a majority of MPS, many of them Labour, will wince, and groan, and stare at their shoes, before shuffling miserably through the lobbies to pass the deal they rejected in record numbers just a few weeks earlier.
After which, it’s into the transition period: or, to put it another way, yet more gruelling talks with the EU. Years of them.
It’s all very well for Donald Tusk to warn us about a special place in hell.
Are we sure we’re not already in it?