Brexit: Behind Closed Doors (BBC4)****

Wednesday, May 8

JUST when it seems quiet - too quiet? - on the Brexit front, along comes a documentary to put le chat among the pigeons again.

Far from damping down the tension between Leavers and Remainers, Belgian director Lode Desmet’s riveting film, the result of two years as a fly-on-the- wall of Guy Verhofstadt, Brexit co-ordinator for the European Parliament, will likely inflame it.

Leavers will look on Brexit: Behind Closed Doors and see a European elite who like nothing more than sneering at the British over a few nice glasses of wine. Oh, and they really do eat chips with mayonnaise. The bounders.

Remainers will see that from the off the UK Government acted with a lethal combination of intransigence and incompetence that was always doomed to end in tears.

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To think it all started so well, with the European Parliament’s Brexit steering group, representing the major political groupings, laughing and toasting the prospect of two years together. “And then the transition period also!” says Verhofstadt, “another three years!” To which someone adds, “At least,” and they chortle again. Without giving away any spoilers, no-one is tee-heeing by the end.

Desmet has a deliciously dry wit and a pleasing sense of mischief. Best of all, he is able to disappear into the background. Subjects of fly-on-the-wall docs tell themselves that they will never forget the camera is lurking, but few people can keep it up, particularly if filming goes on as long as this. There will be some on Verhofstadt’s staff today wishing they had paid more attention, such as the aide who sighed “Oh, **** off,” as he watched Theresa May on television, sashaying on to the stage at party conference to Dancing Queen.

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Verhofstadt, known as “Hoff” to his staff, is a former Prime Minister of Belgium and far too canny to be caught out so obviously. But he, too, does not come off that well as we see him going to his home in Umbria, a restored villa with a vineyard that produces 3000 bottles of wine a year. Not exactly man of the people stuff. Ditto his hobby of racing classic British cars, even if they do have a tendency to break down (taxi for Mr Metaphor!). In other news, he favours Calvin Klein pants.

Michel Barnier, the chief EU Brexit negotiator, is revealed as playing hardball from the beginning, insisting on negotiations proceeding in a sequence of his choosing. We see Verhofstadt taking a call from him. At Desmet’s request, but unbeknown to Barnier, the speaker is on. “Just between the two of us,” says Barnier, “there is no justification in discussing the future relationship between the EU and UK in combination with their debts. I’ll tell them tomorrow quite brutally, calmly but clearly, that this is not negotiable.” He later adds, “Don’t say any of this publicly,” to which Verhofstadt replies, “I won’t.”

Desmet’s engrossing film makes a fitting companion piece to Norma Percy’s Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil, and Laura Kuenssberg’s The Brexit Storm. It allows UK viewers to see ourselves as others saw us, and the picture is not very flattering. Theresa May flits around the margins, power seeping away from her as one humiliation follows the next. Brexit secretaries come and go like buses, Commons votes look scenes from a farce. The ultimate insult to May comes towards the end when one member of the Brexit steering group confesses to feeling sorry for her.

The film airs, of course, with Brexit not yet concluded. I doubt Verhofstadt will be inviting Desmet back to film how it all turns out. It hardly matters; his work there is done.

Concludes on May 9 at 9pm, BBC4, and available on iPlayer