Europe finally seems to have realised that this is not a play fight any more

We must take the nice talk from Europe at face value and the negotiating team should take the initiative

call new “optics”. The leaders of Europe’s governments – who have to worry about being re-elected and are therefore not free to give a Juncker-like shrug over the fate of their own economies – started talking turkey about trade.

At least, they started to talk about talking about it. Not with Britain, of course, just among themselves. But we had already had hints of that: the EU27 was to begin exploring the possibilities that might – maybe, possibly – constitute an arrangement for trading with the UK after it leaves. This will involve, one may imagine, some pretty heavy-going debate between countries like Sweden, whose main concern is selling us things and where the National Board of Trade is already engaged in drawing up a basis for trading with the UK post-Brexit, and those whose concerns are fiercely ideological, like France, which was the original architect of this metaphysical project.

At some point, they will presumably report back to the UK negotiating team with the conclusions of these internal deliberations – assuming that they are able to reach mutually acceptable conclusions. In the end, it will almost certainly be Germany (when it eventually forms a government) that will call the shots. And that may be good news for the UK (if you think that reaching some sort of agreement is good news) and for the desperately embattled Conservative government.

It was Angela Merkel who was leading the upbeat chorus after the EU Council summit. She simply would not countenance the idea that Britain would leave without a deal: there was “absolutely no indication” of such a thing, she said, and then added that for British Eurosceptics to urge Theresa May to walk away was “absurd”. Contrary to reports in the UK media, progress was being made step by step. And so on. Whether you believe this or not, the fact that she said it is hugely significant.

In the great EU tradition, everybody followed Germany’s instructions. The European Council’s president, Donald Tusk, tweeted that EU leaders had given the green light to “preparations for the second phase [of negotiations]” and Jean-Claude Juncker, in his predictably back-handed way, agreed: he hated the “no deal” scenario, he said – which was an oddly personal way of putting it. Only Emmanuel Macron (see reference to France above) seemed adamantly unhelpful, muttering about how much more work still needs to be done on the question of money. On the prospect of no deal, he was relentless: “The UK would be the first to lose in that situation.” (But not the last, he might have added.)

What is the lesson of this sudden outburst of conciliatory noise? That the people who really run the EU – the elected leaders of its member states – have got the upper hand over its unelected, unaccountable pinhead bureaucrats? Or maybe that this business was bound to get serious eventually and that reality is finally breaking through?

Either or both of these things are probably true, but it is almost certainly the case that the increasingly aggressive calls from assertive Brexiteers for the UK to walk away – supported by some extremely persuasive argument and evidence for the plausibility of a no-deal future – have scared the living daylights out of European leaders. Mrs Merkel may

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion claim that their calls are “absurd”, but if she is even remotely persuaded that they are under serious consideration, she – and her colleagues – will know that this isn’t a play fight any more.

At least for the moment, we must take all this nice talk at face value. The EU really, really loves us. Punishment is not what they have in mind – certainly not. Nor do they wish to make an example of us to dissuade any other malcontents who might get dangerous ideas about self-government. Presumably even the terrible twins of Brussels, Juncker and Michel Barnier, will now be caught up in the new mood of generosity and fair play. Fine. Let’s go with that. It is precisely the attitude that Mrs May offered in her speech in Florence last month. Indeed, Mrs Merkel’s words appeared to echo Mrs May’s quite pointedly.

In that spirit, the UK negotiating team should step on to the front foot. An immediate unilateral offer of existing rights to all EU citizens living in the UK should be the first move. This would make it morally impossible for the EU not to reciprocate by matching the offer to UK citizens living in Europe. Then they must give great attention to every word that is uttered by everybody to ensure that we always make an unimpeachable and coherent case for our position: yes, this is about defending the democratic integrity of the nation state – which is a very different thing from nationalism of the sinister sort.

Above all, we understand the difficulties. Nobody has invoked Article 50 before. Everybody is stumbling in the dark. But all our peoples deserve something better than political vanity and recrimination.

It is almost certainly the case that the increasingly aggressive calls for the UK to walk away have scared the living daylights out of European leaders