Planned humiliation posing as diplomacy

Is the EU serious about wanting a deal with the UK over Brexit? Judging by the goings-on in Luxembourg yesterday the answer must be, no they don’t – or at least not with Boris Johnson. His working lunch with Jean Claude-juncker and Michel Barnier was an opportunity to reset the negotiations and put them on course for an agreement by October 31. Instead, there was a deliberate attempt to humiliate the British Prime Minister by staging a press conference from which he was absent. The “empty lectern” approach adopted by Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s prime minister, was hardly a friendly or constructive act.

Mr Johnson decided not to join his host outside in the courtyard of the government building where the talks were held because demonstrators, just yards away, were prepared to heckle everything he said. The British delegation’s request for the news conference to be held inside was rejected and Mr Bettel then proceeded to play to the gallery of protesters by launching an impassioned attack on Brexit and Mr Johnson personally.

Gesturing to the empty space where the Prime Minister should have been, Mr Bettel said: “It’s his responsibility. Your people, our people, count on you – but the clock is ticking .... We need more than just words.” This was not only poor diplomacy but an insulting way to treat a guest and the leader of another country.

Mr Bettel, clearly angered by suggestions that the EU was somehow responsible for the current mess, said: “We are not the bad guys here.” They had reached a deal with the British government in good faith, he said, and it was the UK that was now seeking to unravel it. That may be true but that deal could not get through Parliament and the EU has to recognise that reality.

Mr Johnson eventually had his say away from the demonstrators and maintained that the shape of a deal was discernible. He also disputed a claim from Mr Juncker that there had not yet been any “legally operational” proposals from the UK.

The treatment of the Prime Minister had echoes of the way his predecessor, Theresa May, was stitched up at the notorious summit in Salzburg – designed to damage her politically at home. The EU is calculating that Mr Johnson’s threat of a no-deal Brexit is a bluff because he cannot get that past the Commons.

They may be right. But if they are not then they will have to share the blame for the consequences.