Brexit negotiations got off to a troubled start this morning when EU negotiators failed to achieve the agreement of all 27 member states on whether to have croissants or pain au chocolat for breakfast. British negotiators rubbed salt into the wound by having a bacon sandwich and doing Inspector Clouseau impressions.
The contentious issue of whether the UK should pay a multi-billion pound divorce bill on leaving the union was put aside while debate raged over whether pickled herring is even a proper breakfast. French and Italian officials came to blows over who had the most attractive mistress while the Greeks took advantage of the confusion to steal the Germans’ wallets. The Germans responded by demanding the return of Alsace-Lorraine. Again.
Negotiations on the repeal of the common agriculture policy were suspended while David Davis rode around the conference hall on a bike while wearing a beret and a string of onions.
This lead to a vote among the 27 member states on whether to unilaterally leave Nato, but the motion failed to achieve the necessary numbers because the representative of Latvia had gone to the toilet. They did, however, manage to pass a retaliatory directive banning the sale and use of brown sauce.
Mr Davis responded by goosestepping around the table singing the Horst Wessel song, which amused the Dutch, causing the immediate re-militarisation of the Rhineland and the annexation of 26 tulip farms. Then the Danes punched the Swedes ‘just because we like doing it’ and the Finns wandered off to get drunk with the Irish, for much the same reason.
Asked to comment on the first day of negotiations an EU spokesman told the Mercury that events had gone ‘as well as we could realistically have hoped’, and that the process ‘demonstrated the close and instinctive bond that binds all the nations of Europe in harmonious union. Except the British, who we all hate now.’
The Dalston Mercury 