Europe is waking up on May Day to the most devastating document published so far on Brexit. In what appears to be an almost verbatim account of the Downing Street dinner last Wednesday in which Theresa May and David Davis broke bread with Jean-Claude Juncker and Michel Barnier, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Sunday edition details the sheer astonishment of the EU negotiators at May’s position.

There is a semantic dispute on whether Brussels or Berlin planted the story but since there is zero difference between Angela Merkel (or Martin Schulz) and the Juncker-Tusk-Barnier troika, it hardly matters. London political journalists who deal daily in cynically planted leaks are hardly in a position to protest at German journalists happy to publish an account that is extremely damaging to the British Prime Minister.

The details, however, are a shock. May told Juncker that Britain did not have to pay any of the UK’s outstanding bills or liabilities. She insisted all negotiations should be kept secret and was surprised when Juncker said there would have to be reports to national parliaments. If the UK left the single market and the customs union Britain would have a lower status as a “third country” than Turkey, Juncker told the Prime Minister.