Britain is no readier for Brexit in August than it was in July. But because parliament is not sitting, the sun is out and everything slows down at this time of year, the atmosphere of crisis has dissipated. It is a curious phenomenon: EU membership expires next March, but relentless motion towards a deadline doesn’t bring any sense of advance towards a destination. Westminster cycles between chaos and calm, oddly detached from the reality of what must be achieved without time to spare. This is one thing that strikes me after a month away from the UK. I didn’t go far, only to France, but it was distance enough to notice how, from the outside, British politics manages to look frenetic and stuck at the same time.
Theresa May was also in France at the end of last week. She held talks with Emmanuel Macron at the Fort de Brégançon, a Mediterranean retreat for French presidents since Charles de Gaulle. Or rather, she talked and he listened. The disparity in how much was at stake for the two leaders shone through every account. The British prime minister was depicted as desperate for help from European capitals to rehabilitate a Brexit plan that is only a few weeks old but already ailing. There was no sense of Macron needing anything in return; no discussion of how he should play it.
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