• IN Brexiteer La-La-Land, the European Union had until last week been a rule-taker for negotiating purposes: a place onto which the United Kingdom could project its demands for a free lunch and where economic calculus (“they sell us more than we do them”) or geopolitical fear (“they need our army against Putin”) would prevail.

On planet Earth, in proportional terms, EU exports to us account for just 3 per cent of its GDP (versus 13 per cent) and, as Lord Stewart Wood tweeted, it is a conceit to think our security
co-operation with the rest of Europe is our gift to it rather than in our own profound interest.

The European Council roadmap for the Article 50 talks is another dent in this provincialism, which we knew it would be.

Not only is it clear the EU will try to protect itself, its constituent members, as the guideline giving Spain an effective veto over any trade deal applying to Gibraltar shows, get scope for agenda-shaping and opportunistic power grabs.

The Daily Mail will froth with engineered dudgeon, having helped put us here in the first place, but the problem, as the United Kingdom is about to find out, is that other countries are far more similar to it than may now be comfortable.

DOMINIC BRETT
Netherhall Gardens,
NW3