A new friendly relationship
You’ve got to laugh, the PM tried to secure his leadership vote by telling his backbenchers that he had secured “a new friendly relationship with Brussels”.
Today we hear that the Foreign Secretary and the PM had sharp words over the plan to break international law. She wants to go all the way and tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol and he just wants to “blow the bloody doors off”, as you might say.
Lord Frost meanwhile is telling anyone who will listen that he negotiated this bad deal but it was not his fault.
Which is somehow twisted into a reason for tearing it up.
None of this is friendly, diplomatic or legal. Nor is it regarded with anything but horror in Brussels and the other capitals of Europe and beyond.
The PM never thinks beyond the next lie, but unfortunately for the UK his opposite numbers abroad do. It is why they now have a huge negotiating advantage.
They can see the desperate, lying clown coming.
Contempt is rarely the basis for a new friendly, equal relationship.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.