A long, agonising divorce

Having politely lost patience and keen to get on with other business, Brussels is quietly planning for no deal while Britain sorts out its ‘dysfunctional family issues’

‘Order! Order! I ask the house to have some regard to how our proceedings are viewed outside the chamber,” the speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow begged last week as prime minister Boris Johnson floundered at the dispatch box in the face of jeers and roars.

Bercow might have had the British electorate in mind, but many in Brussels were also looking on in dismay.

Not that you would think so ...