Eu

It's no surprise that demands from French politicians to scrap the Le Touquet deal and shift the migrant 'jungle' from Calais to Dover has gone down badly in Britain. Today's front pages are full of talk of 'Le Stitch up'. And the Home Office has waded in to say these plans are a complete 'non starter'. This all sets the scene for a testy meeting for Amber Rudd as she crosses the Channel to meet her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, for talks today. Their meeting will be a private one but it isn't difficult to work out that Calais will be top of their agenda. What's difficult about finding a solution, however, is that all of this talk is something of a phoney war of words, at least for now.

In the runup to the referendum, we heard repeated warnings that, whatever the outcome of the actual vote, the damage to the UK economy had been done. The Bank of England, whose governor has been accused of becoming something of a fellow traveller for Project Fear, warned in its Monetary Policy Committee meeting in March that: ‘There appears to be increased uncertainty surrounding the forthcoming referendum on UK membership of the European Union’. In April, the BoE was at it again, downgrading second-quarter growth from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent. Warnings such as these risk of being self-fulfilling: if you talk about uncertainty, it’s hardly surprising that investors feel uncertain, creating a knock-on effect out of nowhere.

It's no surprise that Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi chose to host a press conference with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande on an aircraft carrier; this was a piece of theatre designed to show the EU is fighting back. 'Many thought the EU was finished after Brexit,' said Renzi. Not so, he claimed. Instead, Britain's decision to leave the EU was the chance to 'write a future chapter' and 'relaunch the powerful ideas of unity and peace, freedom and dreams', the Italian PM insisted. All very well, you might think, but what does that mean? Defending the continent against the threat of Islamic terrorism was a key topic. Angela Merkel called for intelligence services across the continent to share more information to help fight extremism. So far, so sensible.

The biggest puzzle of Theresa May’s premiership so far is why someone who pioneered laws against modern slavery and was so tough on stop-and-search should take such an extreme and heartless position on EU migrants. Her declaration – that she’d use them as bargaining chips in Brexit talks – struck many who would otherwise support her as bizarre and repugnant. The Times reveals today that this idea was dummed up, as you’d expect, by the Whitehall machine. Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, advised all candidates for the Tory leadership to use Britain’s three million EU nationals as bargaining chips in Brexit talks because he thought it would be the only bargaining chip Britain had.

Britain’s decision to leave the EU sent shockwaves crashing throughout the continent. As Europe struggled to interpret the outcome of the referendum, we heard calls for Brussels to drive a hard bargain with the UK in order to contain the 'Brexit contagion'. The European Council President Donald Tusk's warning that the UK must not be allowed to 'profit' from leaving the bloc summed up this mood. But now, it seems, our neighbours in Europe are coming to terms with Brexit. And with it, the desire to punish the UK appears to be dampening. Michael Roth, Germany's European Affairs minister, has this week suggested that a 'special status' could be achieved which would take into account Britain’s size and previous commitment to the European project.

Theresa May has somewhat shamefully maintained her reticence over the rights of EU workers to stay in Britain after Brexit. But some in the 'Leave' campaign are continuing to pile pressure on the PM to do the right thing and give assurance to the 3.5million Europeans living and working in Britain. Gisela Stuart was clear throughout the referendum that these workers should not be booted out of Britain in the event of a 'Leave' vote. And in a campaign which painted few in glory, Stuart is an exception for actually sticking by what she said. Here's what she had to say this morning: 'I think there is no debate about guaranteeing rights, it's a question about what point does the Government become explicit that existing rights will be honoured.