EU in no mood to put the boot in

AVOID ALCOHOL, pull down the blinds, turn off the lights and drink water regularly.

Those were the instructions that were circulated around the European Union offices in Brussels as advice to staff on how to cope with the heatwave.

But they could just have easily been the preparatory notes for both sides in the Brexit talks as they got under way.

This promises to be a gruelling process for all involved.

Having asked the British people for a mandate and then lost its Commons majority, the Conservative minority government hardly begins the talks from a position of strength.

But those with experience of the inner workings of Brussels expect the response of the EU negotiators, in the short term at least, will be to try to help their British counterparts rather than capitalise on their vulnerability.

Having waited almost a year since the referendum to begin talks with London, the last thing the EU wants to do is to have to start the process again in a few months’ time with different negotiating partners and so will endeavour to keep the tone positive.

However, Brussels will want to start making progress on the substantive issues soon and to do that they need the UK Government to decide what it wants.

But with cabinet members exploiting the prime minister’s weak position to set out their own Brexit priorities, it is hard to see how talks with the EU can amount to much more than platitudes for now.