My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion

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Michel Barnier ( French pronunciation: [miʃɛl baʁnje]; born 9 January 1951) is a French politician who served as the European Commission's Head of Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom (UK Task Force/UKTF) from 2019 to 2021. Indeed, between 2016 and 2019, he was Chief Negotiator in charge of the preparation and conduct of the negotiations with the UK. Barnier recounts a tense phone conversation with Martin Selmayr, the controversial former chief of staff ofJean-Claude Juncker,whom he suspects to be holding parallel negotiations with the British at a critical moment in the Brexit negotiations.

In a crunch meeting with Ursula von der Leyen to seek a final breakthrough, Mr Johnson appeared “not to have taken the time to go through the detail himself with his team in advance”, telling the Commission president that he was ready to be flexible over fishing rights but needed to be able to show that the UK had won back its sovereignty in time for the next general election in three years.He never saw the point of Brexit, he confesses, and, visiting a capital a week in a marathon effort to forge and maintain EU27 unity, gives the notion of “Global Britain” short shrift. There are reasons to listen to the popular feeling that expressed itself then, and continues to express itself in many parts of Europe – and to respond to it. Mr Barnier watches with increasing incredulity as then-Prime Minister Theresa May gives her Lancaster House speech in January 2017. Barnier then served as a European Commissioner for Regional Policy in the Prodi Commission from 1999 until 31 March 2004. K. was “particularly dependent upon the Dover-Calais crossing,” writing: “I don’t even want to smile but there is definitely something that is deranged in the British system.

In “The Grand Illusion: A Secret Diary of Brexit” — available in French, with an English version out in the fall — the former chief Brexit negotiator portrays himself as a calm and collected operator during a historic negotiation, regularly trying to “control our nerves” in the face of irresponsible British politicians and officials.I worked lots with the two taoisigh, for a long time with Leo Varadkar and then with his successor, Micheál Martin," he said.

The post-Chequers resignations of Davis and Johnson in July 2018 prompt the reflection that Johnson had in any event always “treated these negotiations strictly as a domestic matter, and according to the logic of his own Brexit battle”, while their replacements, Raab and Jeremy Hunt, spark little enthusiasm either. Next, from 2019 to 2021, Michel Barnier was the EU's Chief Negotiator responsible for preparing the future relationship with the UK. He blasted Eurocrats for ignoring their legitimate concerns - such as illegal immigration and the "red tape and complexity" of the EU. Indeed, Agnell explained in the 1910s that no one can come out of a war unscathed, and that all parties, whether winners or losers, are in fact losers.In 2006–2007, he served as member of the Amato Group, a group of high-level European politicians unofficially working on rewriting the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe into what became known as the Treaty of Lisbon following its rejection by French and Dutch voters.

I find that the current team in 10 Downing St is not up to the challenges of Brexit nor to the responsibility that is theirs for having wanted Brexit. Frost then informs him in a "somewhat arrogant tone" that all the important stuff in their negotiations will be dealt with by the prime minister and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Michel Barnier, at the end of his book, seems to proudly advocate a desire for renewal for the EU, drawing lessons from Brexit.In the image of its author, it is mostly courteous, measured and precise: a sober, matter-of-fact – and, to those who followed Brexit’s twists and turns, broadly familiar – account. Thus, at a time when the candidates who will face each other are gradually entering the campaign, this book can be seen as a form of political programme: while Michel Barnier has not formally announced his candidature for the next elections, he says he will make a statement in the autumn 2021 about his potential presidential ambitions.