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At any meal, it always matters who is the host. He — or in this case, she — decides who will sit round the table. The guest may be treated with elaborate courtesy, but she — or in this case,

he — cannot object if a cosy _dîner à deux _becomes a mini-summit. Two’s company, three or more is a crowd. At Wednesday’s dinner in Brussels, the prime ministerial guest was Boris Johnson,

but the host was Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission. It was, we must assume, her decision to invite the two chief negotiators, to join them, along with Stéphanie Riso,

her eyes and ears on Brexit.  Any chance of a breakthrough in the stalled UK-EU trade talks faded as soon as the lanky figure of Michel Barnier entered the room. Like Banquo’s ghost,

Barnier’s baleful presence at the dinner table must have lowered the temperature to freezing point. It is he, rather than his British counterpart, who deserves the nickname “Frosty”. Under

his watchful gaze, Boris and Ursula were never able to do more than establish what everyone already knew: that the two sides were still “very far apart”. The discussions were “frank”, which

in the language of diplomacy means that they had a row.  Having Barnier to dinner to discuss the failure of the negotiations to reach a compromise so far is a little like inviting Thomas

Cromwell to a marriage counselling session for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. To say that the chemistry wasn’t quite right in that room would be an understatement even by British standards: the

atmosphere must have been more toxic than the South Circular in a Friday rush hour. As he arrived, Boris Johnson was heard to compliment “VDL” (as Ursula von der Leyen apparently likes to

be known) on her strict insistence on wearing masks: “I see you run a tight ship here,” he quipped. That was before he was metaphorically clapped in irons by the Captain Bligh of the

Berlaymont. In her eyes, Brexiteers are just mutineers. Tonight, a very different banquet will take place _chez _VDL: the European Council. The 27 heads of government will sit down together,

studiously ignoring the shameful precedent set by treating the sole former member of the club worse than Canada. Brexit is not on the menu; just as well, as it would surely give some of

those present indigestion. The Irish, for example, will find that for all the fine words flowing from Brussels, the reality is that the UK will remain by far their largest market, as it

always has been. The Poles, likewise, will privately regret the EU’s bullying of a country that a million of its citizens call home. Even the Germans, who now like to lecture the British

about fair play and the rule of law, may come to rue the day that they gave in to vindictive and hypocritical French politicians. There is no case for denying the UK a deal for the sake of

preserving the EU’s trading standards. In some areas, the British already have higher ones;  any future divergence is more likely to be because the EU convoy moves at the speed of its

slowest ship. The same goes for transparency — almost impossible to police, given the endemic corruption that afflicts all but a few Northern European countries. State subsidies that distort

competition are much less of a problem in Britain than on the other side of the Channel, where what Americans call pork barrel politics has been elevated to an art. It is understandable

that trust between the UK and EU has been damaged by the acrimony of the past four or five years. An agreed system of arbitration for future disputes makes sense. But it is actually quite

sinister for the European side to seek to maintain control indefinitely as the price of access to its markets. The concept of reciprocity seems alien to those who think that big is

beautiful. Instead, the EU is behaving like an empire that grants nominal independence to its colonies but refuses to relinquish the mechanisms of imperial hegemony. That, indeed, has been

the story of French decolonisation, especially in Africa.  The administrative Europe that will parade itself in Brussels tonight is not, of course, the only one. There is, too, the Europe of

high culture: from Homer to Houellebecq, from Palestrina to Arvo Pärt and from Phidias to Henry Moore. There is the Europe of scientific discovery, most recently displayed in the

astonishing development of the Covid vaccines and artificial intelligence. There is the Europe of commerce and civil society, the Europe of peoples: the hundreds of millions of ordinary men

and women who want to do business, travel and study abroad. None of these Europes stops at Calais. They all embrace the offshore islanders as much as the Continentals. There is no good

reason why the recovery and exercise of sovereignty by one of the oldest nation states in the world should have more than a marginal effect any of these Europes. “No deal” means giving

license to the interference of self-important and self-interested officialdom in what ought by rights to be one of the closest and least problematic relationships on earth. By the time Boris

Johnson invites Ursula von der Leyen to dine with him, the deadline will have passed and the die will be cast on the trade deal that got away. We must hope that round the Prime Minister’s

table will not be diplomats or bureaucrats, but writers and artists, scientists and doctors, plus a few ordinary people who have done something extraordinary. They should all be as European

as they are British, as diverse as they are patriotic. The conversation at this dinner party should be as stimulating as in Plato’s _Symposium _or as convivial as _The Pickwick Papers_.

President von der Leyen needs to understand that just because her writ no longer runs in London, we are no less part of European civilisation. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only

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