Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, delivered the letter Europe had been waiting for at lunchtime on Wednesday. After 31 years in the diplomatic service, stints as Britain’s envoy to Moscow and Kiev, a KCMG and an MBE, it was a funny sort of career pinnacle – to become the nation’s most eminent postman.



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More than nine months have passed since Britain voted to leave the European Union, giving the once obscure article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon treaty magical status. So it was inevitable that Barrow’s delivery became political theatre, momentous and completely absurd. Excitable reporters counted the 342 steps the ambassador might walk from UK headquarters (UKrep) to the EU council building. He was driven. Banks of cameras and two dozen reporters awaited him at the Europa building on an overcast Brussels morning. “Show us the letter,” shouted one. He said nothing, but strode past briskly, without a word or a glance, leather briefcase in hand. He had a mission.



That mission was already being written up like a spy novel. The letter was carried to Brussels by a senior civil servant on the Eurostar amid high security, it was reported. “Historic article 50 letter to be hand-delivered at secret time and location, amid fears of sabotage by remainers,” was the breathless banner headline on the Telegraph website. Disappointingly for connoisseurs of the EU conspiracy genre, Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, had already given the game away, by tweeting the time and the place.

Neither were there conspicuous acts of sabotage. No last-minute switch of briefcases by Anna Soubry masquerading as Latvia’s ambassador, nor a desperate remain voter attempting to knock the letter out of Tusk’s hands before the Brexit clock began ticking.

But before the bother with the letter, Barrow had work to do: the 2,662nd meeting of the EU’s 28 permanent ambassadors to Brussels, known in EU jargon as coreper. Week in, week out, for the last 44 years, the British ambassador and his deputy have attended these Wednesday meetings. This is the bread and butter of Britain’s EU membership: the forum for deciding EU laws, haggling over money and fixing the bloc’s posture vis-a-vis the rest of the world. While Brexiteers led the charge to take back control, it was rarely pointed out the UK votes with the majority of its EU neighbours most of the time.



In true EU style, Wednesday’s agenda was a mix of geopolitical strategising and mundane housekeeping. The 28 ambassadors debated the EU’s stance on Syria and Yemen and discussed revamping an EU regulation on illegal drugs. Then there were nearly four dozen administrative points to be rubber-stamped: Romania sought approval of its new envoy to the EU’s committee of the regions; France wanted to register its design for a commemorative €2 coin. Mixed in with the paper work, ambassadors signed off €60m from the EU’s solidarity funds to help Britain pay for the 2016 winter floods.



Only after Barrow had done his ambassadorial duties could he slip away to meet Tusk, who had delayed a trip to Malta by one day and cleared his diary to accommodate the British trigger day. Tusk looked rueful as he took the envelope. He said later there was no reason to pretend this was a happy day, either in Brussels or in London. “What can I add to this, we already miss you.”



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Across the street, less than 500 metres away, a small gaggle of Ukippers tried hard to show Brussels there was no reason to miss the Brits. In a typical made-for-TV stunt, Ukip MEPs and Eurosceptic allies gathered at the Old Hack pub, opposite the European commission. Bottles of fizz were opened. The union jack was waved. A cake with article 50 candles was wheeled out for the cameras. MEPs talked grandly about victory, freedom and a second D-Day. But the mood was flat. Nigel Farage and his successor as Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, stayed away. When the Guardian stopped by, journalists and cameramen outnumbered the MEPs and party workers. “Get on and cut the cake,” ordered one of the journalists, impatient to move on.

Because inside the pub, the news was rolling. Theresa May was telling MPs she wanted a “special and deep partnership with the EU”, as she attempted to strike a more emollient tone. “We will understand that there will be consequences for the UK of leaving the EU,” she said.

The consequences will ripple across the country and the European continent for years. In two years they will be obvious, for the Ukip MEPs who voted themselves out of a job, and the British diplomats who give up the UK’s place at the table. Instead of setting the EU’s agenda, Britain will try influence it from afar, perhaps by writing polite letters.

