But neither of them has played a prominent role in negotiations over the U.K.’s departure from the European Union next March. The EU’s main interlocutor has long been Oliver Robbins, May’s top Europe advisor (poached from Davis’ Department for Exiting the EU late last year). The bloc’s top Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, made exactly that point at an EU summit late last month. [...]
For Brussels and the EU27 nations, what Britain puts on the negotiating table is far more important than who sits at it. On that score, May’s latest customs and trading proposal was greeted with the same muted shrug as the resignations. [...]
Calling the single market “the heart of the European project,” Barnier said in a speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs think tank: “There will be no damage to it.” He added, “There will be no unraveling of what we’ve achieved.”
For Brussels, May’s push at Chequers for a softer Brexit amounted to an important but still insufficient step toward the U.K.’s eventual acceptance of EU negotiating proposals that have not changed in more than a year. And it was not immediately clear that further resignations, or even the collapse of May’s government, would change anything.
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