It was a special Sunday summit to seal Brexit – but right from the off all eyes here were on how this is going down back in the UK, and specifically in parliament.
Indeed, the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker sought out Sky News Europe correspondent Mark Stone at the entrance to the summit to tell him he had spent over three hours watching Sky News on Saturday night in the aftermath of the agreement on Gibraltar to try to discern the reaction in Westminster.
After 40 minutes of what EU Council sources called a dignified, solemn, measured and composed discussion, the withdrawal deal and the political declaration were all agreed.
This has not been a quickie divorce – it’s been two years in the making and now Theresa May will return to try and sell this deal back home.
Downing Street is anxious that the deal “lands” with the public and the vital mission for the PM on Sunday was optics, and to try and enlist EU leaders to help create a sense of inevitability that there is no other option, that this is the best deal possible. That it is consistent with the PM’s negotiation asks.
A succession of European leaders directed precisely this message at British MPs.
Mr Juncker, who had met the PM on Saturday night (before his Sky News bingeathon) said: “I say to the House of Commons this is the only deal possible.
“Those who think if they reject the deal they will get a better deal will be disappointed within seconds.”
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said “this is a fair and balanced agreement… the best deal possible given the circumstances”.
The PM’s key message was: “The British people don’t want to spend any more time arguing about Brexit. They want a good deal done that fulfils the vote and allows us to come together again as a country.”
Olly Robbins – the civil servant negotiator who has been the subject of so much Brexiteer anger – told me that as Mr Juncker said “it is the only possible deal”.
“There. Is. No. Alternative, and if you don’t believe me, listen to the Europeans”, is Mrs May’s sales pitch.
Her problem, though, is that she is not the only European leader with a domestic constituency to please.
On Saturday we heard the Spanish gloating, overly so, about their biggest diplomatic win since the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday: “Really, regarding the departure of the United Kingdom, we are all losing, and it’s especially the United Kingdom who is losing, but regarding Gibraltar, Spain wins. And Europe wins.”
But more problematic was the French president, who again at the very end of a summit that had gone smoothly, delivered an insight into French thinking that will not go down well in an already highly sceptical Commons.
“If we have an agreement we shall defend access to British waters as being part of the indispensable balance – this has been acknowledged in EU27 statement,” he said before being asked by British journalists what “leverage” he thought would be able to deliver continued EU/French access to UK fishing waters post Brexit.
And the clear implication of his answer was that the ability to veto UK exit from an already unpopular customs union backstop gives France leverage over fishing rights.
He said: “It is leverage because it is important as to our future relationship and I do not understand that Mrs May and those who support her very much wanted to stay in the customs union, they would rather favour new rules.”
This is not helpful for the PM ahead of another Commons debate and cabinet meeting on Monday. It is already being seized on by Eurosceptic MPs and it is the opposite of the sort of intervention designed to help the PM.
This is a French president facing his own popularity crisis, meaning some diplomatic victories against a British PM are just too tempting not to mention.
And though the leverage of every EU state in the future trade deal has been the legal reality for some years, the reality of EU nations using this negotiation for diplomatic wins on Gibraltar and fishing has been long predicted.
Illuminating such brutal realities is not what the PM needs right now as she embarks on the biggest sales job in British history.
