A crucial meeting in Berlin for Mrs May

As was apparent from the Chilcot report, close personal relationships between political leaders are not always a good thing. Tony Blair struck up a bond with George W Bush that was subsequently perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be a factor in his decision to support America’s determination to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.

In some ways their friendship was merely an extension of the “special relationship” between the two countries. Similar ties were established by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and between JFK and Harold Macmillan. In recent times, such chemistry has never been particularly strong between British and European leaders, partly because the UK has always been considered a brake on the EU’s centralising ambitions. This has tended to encourage continental politicians to forge their own personal affinities, as Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand did, to counter British influence.

So as Theresa May heads for Berlin tomorrow for her first foreign trip since becoming Prime Minister, there will be much interest in whether she and Angela Merkel get on together, as this relationship will be critical to the way Britain and the EU handle the consequences of the Brexit vote. The referendum outcome caused shock and dismay in Germany where there is no great desire to see the UK punished for leaving the club but no evident enthusiasm for helping Britain, either.

It would be nice to think Europe’s two most powerful leaders could strike up a friendship; but it is by no means essential. What is important is that they each respect where the other is coming from. It is too early in Mrs May’s premiership for her to be able to set out in detail the likely direction of Britain’s negotiations with the EU. But she will want to lay down some parameters now with Mrs Merkel and with François Hollande, whom she is to meet in Paris on Thursday.

An emergency EU Council is being held in Bratislava on September 16 – with Britain absent for the first time – to set out the general negotiating framework for talks. In Berlin and Paris, therefore, Mrs May has her first opportunity of influencing that critical discussion. Charles de Gaulle, who vetoed Britain’s first attempts to join the EEC, once said that France had no friends, only interests. But it is also in a nation’s interests to have friends; and Mrs May’s task is to ensure we keep them.