Britain has friends in Europe

'The European Union seems to be falling in love with itself and needs to be reformed. We wanted to be the best in the world. But it seems many regions in world are far ahead of us.”

These may sound like the sentiments of an ardent Brexiteer; but they are, in fact, the words of the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico. He met Theresa May in Bratislava yesterday on the latest stage of her tour of the EU’s capitals to discuss the implications of the UK’s vote to leave.

While it is right that governments update legislation as necessary and protect the innocent, it cannot and should not try to usurp the organic bonds of civil society that fill a child’s life with many named people: parents, doctors, teachers, family friends.

The eastern European member states are likely to pose the most difficult barrier to a smooth Brexit since so many of their nationals stand to be affected if Britain ends free movement. None the less, they share Britain’s misgivings about the way the EU is developing. Mr Fico, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said years of economic weakness and an influx of migrants had led to disillusionment among voters throughout the bloc. He said Brexit was a good opportunity for the EU to re-evaluate its priorities. Indeed, had it done so earlier, there might not have been a vote in Britain to leave. Mr Fico’s scepticism is shared in Poland, where Mrs May headed after leaving Bratislava.

So the idea that Brexit would be met with sustained hostility from the rest of the EU turns out not to be true. Europe is not the Brussels-based Commission. Nor is it the Franco-German axis, even if those two countries carry most weight in the Council of Ministers. Britain has allies, if only for obtaining the reforms of the EU that David Cameron sought but failed to achieve. It is too late now to keep us in the club; but in the negotiations about a new relationship between the UK and the EU, we may have more friends than we realise.

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