The lexicon of Brexit has a new entry: the ‘Farage clause’. As part of Labour’s ‘reset’ talks with Brussels, EU negotiators have reportedly floated a termination provision that would require compensation if a future UK government walked away from a new deal designed to ease post-Brexit checks on food and agricultural trade. In plain English: if Britain signs up to reduce border friction now and then later blows the arrangement up, Brussels wants someone to pay the bill for putting the border back together again.

Like lots of things involving Britain and the EU, however, this ‘Farage clause’ is not what it looks like. It isn’t really about the Reform UK leader. It’s about puncturing Labour delusions about restoring British ties with Brussels.

The point is not whether such an arrangement is legally ‘standard’ (the British side says it is and notes it would apply both ways). The point is that the European Union – supposedly chastened, supposedly eager, supposedly longing for a repentant Britain to come home – is acting in typical fashion.

The EU acts, in negotiations, like what it is: a bureaucratic institution designed to defend itself: its single market, its legal order, its institutions, its member states’ interests and its own political class. It does not act like a supporting extra in our national psychodrama. You would have thought we’d have learnt this by now.

The EU isn’t willing to pay any price to have Britain back

During the original Brexit negotiations, one of the most persistent British misconceptions – indulged by both unwise Leavers and imprudent Remainers – was that the EU could be bullied, emotionally blackmailed, or simply........

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