Well, that lasted long. Although Theresa May didn’t get the green light to talk trade on her EU council summit charm offensive last week, there was a general consensus that the mood music had at least improved. The EU27 struck a conciliatory and optimistic tone – agreeing to begin internal trade discussions in anticipation of moving to trade talks in December. Angela Merkel even went so far as to say she had ‘no doubt’ a deal would be reached between the EU and Britain.
However, it seems that the memo to play nice failed to reach the European Commission. Just as happened the last time May had dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker, a withering account of the pair’s meeting on Monday has wound up in the German broadsheet FAZ. The paper reports that May used the Brexit meeting to ‘beg’ for help:
‘But now everything was quite different. May did not give up, she begged for help. She talked about the risk she had received when she recently gave up the hard Brexit course and asked for a transitional period of two years, in which everything is going to be the same. She recalled that she had also moved on the delicate issue of finances. And she let them see that her friend and her enemy were sitting at the back of her neck, waiting for her to fall. She said she had no room for manoeuvre.’
While that passage can certainly be described as indiscreet (and it is worth taking any Brussels briefing with a pinch of salt given this is a negotiation), the briefing also verges on vicious – with an unflattering description of May’s appearance. It reports that to Juncker, May seemed anxious, had deep rings under eyes and looked tormented:
‘Theresa May seemed anxious to the President of the Commission, despondent and discouraged. A woman who hardly dares anybody but is not ready for an act of liberation. Mays facial expressions and their appearance were volumes. Thus Juncker later described it to his colleagues. Everyone can see this: The Prime Minister is drawn from the struggle with her own party. Under her eyes she wears deep rings. She looks like someone who does not sleep for the night. Laughing you can see them only rarely, clearly, for the photographers it must be. But it looks tormented. Previously, May could literally pour out laughter, her whole body then vibrated. Now she brings out the utmost force to avoid losing her temper.’
The last time a leak like this emerged in the German press, it led to May denouncing attempts to interfere in the UK general election. It’s unlikely she’ll take such a hardline stance this time around thanks to her change in circumstance.
Even if this Brussels account of the dinner is taken at face value, it appears to reveal little new about the UK position. It was widely reported already that May had tried to use her ‘weak and stable’ position back home to get the EU leaders to play ball rather than threaten a ‘no deal’ scenario.
But while it may not shed any fresh light, it does serve to embarrass an already diminished Prime Minister back home. When May is attempting to keep the Brexit wing of her party on side in the negotiations, reports that she has resorted to ‘begging’ EU leaders only make her job harder. Brexiteers looking for evidence that Brussels does not have Britain’s best interests at heart in these negotiations need look no further than the latest antics from the European Commission.
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