The rows over the Northern Ireland protocol and fishing are part of a quest for an impossibly pure form of sovereignty
In the war of words over fishing rights in the Channel, much attention has been paid to a single line in a leaked letter from Jean Castex, the French prime minister, to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European commission.
The nuances of the offending sentence vary in translation, but the gist is that European public opinion should be left in no doubt that there is more pain associated with leaving the European Union than staying in it.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
