Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has released his long-awaited diaries. Here he is in his own words on some of Brexit’s key personalities and issues:
On the then prime minister Theresa May: “Direct, convinced by what she says, keen to impose her authority. A slight rigidity in her figure and her attitudes … A courageous woman surrounded by a lot of men busy putting their personal interests before those of their country.”
On May’s reduced majority: “I read on Twitter that I must be happy, going on holiday, offering champagne to my team. I will save that for another time. To succeed in this negotiation we need a stable partner who knows what they want.”
On Boris Johnson, foreign secretary until 2018 then prime minister in 2019: “He and a few others will bear, along with David Cameron, a real responsibility before the history of their country. A baroque personality … From the outset, he appears as he wants to be seen: warm, like a bulldozer, looking to muscle his way through … There is in his eye something authentic, mischievous.”
On David Davis, the then Brexit secretary: “A dyed-in-the-wool conservative … larger than life, warm, very self-assured.”
On Dominic Raab, who succeeded Davis as Brexit secretary in 2018: “There is something in his look that surprises me, a kind of almost messianic glint … I am not sure we will be able to go into the details with him.”
On Olly Robbins, the senior civil servant in charge of the negotiations: “The stamp of the great British senior civil servant. Understands better than the others the consequences of Brexit and is trying to limit its negative effects.”
On Jeremy Hunt, who succeeded Johnson as foreign secretary in 2018: “Comparing the EU to the USSR was ridiculous and insulting … He spent a lot of time visiting EU capitals, denigrating the EU negotiating team, trying to bypass it, and in two phrases he destroyed whatever credit he had in Europe.”
On arch-Brexiters Digby Jones, John Mills, John Longworth: “Their discourse is, quite simply, morally scandalous.”
On Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party leader until 2020: “Still stuck on the idea, like Boris Johnson, that Britain can ‘have its cake and eat it’. His team seems likeable and undoubtedly has a better grasp of the technicalities than he has.”
On Keir Starmer, shadow Brexit secretary until 2019: “Of all my British interlocutors, Keir Starmer, always courteous and professional, is without doubt, along with Hilary Benn, the one who has impressed me most for his capacity to grasp the stakes of these talks in detail.”
On meeting DUP leaders: “The discussion was frank, but on several occasions we had to bring them back to the facts – to reality.”
On the roots of Brexit: “There is, in the words of senior Conservatives, a not insignificant part of ideology, and of nostalgia for a glorified past.”
On Britain’s threats to walk away: “We could have done without this psychodrama. But doubtless we had to go through it, to create a smokescreen so the British could start really negotiating on the most difficult questions.”
On truth: “I do not know if British businesses are being told the whole truth. My responsibility is to tell the truth to European businesses.”
On the end of it all: “The clock is no longer ticking.”
