By the halfway point of the meal, the Commission president had remarked, ‘The more I hear, the more sceptical I become.’ At the close of the meal, Juncker told May, ‘I leave Downing Street ten times as sceptical as I was before.’ At seven o’clock the next morning, having concluded that the talks were as likely as not to fail, Juncker picked up the phone to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and declared, ‘It went very badly. She is living in another galaxy. Based on the meeting, no deal is much more likely than finding agreement.’
