Portrait of the week | 7 December 2017

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Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was thrown into a political crisis, along with the negotiations for Brexit, during a protracted lunch in Brussels with Jean- Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. At first, smiles and Mr Juncker’s special cheerful tie had suggested that Britain had paid enough and said enough to be allowed at an EU summit on 14 December to enter into trade talks. But the Democratic Unionist Party, which lends the Conservatives a parliamentary majority, had got wind of a phrase in a text already agreed between Dublin and the EU proposing ‘continued regulatory alignment’ on both sides of the Irish border. Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, held a press conference in Belfast declaring that the party would accept no Brexit deal that ‘separates’ Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. Mrs May interrupted lunch, leaving the cinnamon ice cream to melt on the tarte tatin, to speak to Mrs Foster on the telephone.