Almost since Britain joined the European Union, its European policy has been described as an effort to drive a wedge between France and Germany. Derailing the Franco-German locomotive would undermine the continental federalists and safeguard precious British sovereignty. The strategy has proved futile and foolish in roughly equal measure.

There have been exceptions to this rule and, once or twice, moments when it seemed to work: fleeting interludes of trilateralism (remember Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder); and equally short periods when it seemed Britain could indeed exploit a Franco-German chill (think of Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand conspiring briefly against German unification).