A Brexit deal has still not been agreed – it would be sensible to extend the transition period

Editorial: There will be further discussions in the coming days but with everyone preoccupied by Covid, time and space are needed in order to reach an agreement

Cartoon 10 December 2020 (Dave Brown)

In the end, then, the dinner date from Hell went about as badly as might have been expected. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, was born in Brussels, is the daughter of a European commissioner and is a devout federalist. Boris Johnson made a career out of ridiculing the EU and used Brexit to inveigle his way into No 10. It was hardly a match made in heaven.

Yet they didn’t quite break up; there will be more discussions, and there may even be a second dinner date. If things don’t work out over the next few days, though, the break-up could happen on Sunday.

Even so, as Mr Johnson has said, hope springs eternal. Talks will continue. Partly, this a matter of necessity, as both sides still have as much as ever to lose from a chaotic Brexit, though the British would come off proportionately worse. Both leaders are also keenly aware of the “optics”, and are reluctant to be the one seen as responsible for ending the discussions about the “Partnership Agreement”. Neither principal wishes to be blamed for what Mr Johnson called “a failure of statecraft”. There is a good deal of stage management in these final stages of Brexit.