Despite the tough love, Johnson’s EU sortie has been a relative success

PM has lined up Brussels, Paris and Berlin as fall guys for any failure to find Brexit solutions. Boris Johnson looked supremely relaxed as he met Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée on Thursday, at one point even jokingly resting one foot on an expensive-looking French coffee table. From one perspective, his laid-back demeanour was surprising: Macron’s public remarks before their meeting made clear that the EU27 are a long way from acceding to the PM’s request for a “b