Documentary maker Lode Desmet’s two-part film Brexit: Behind Closed Doors (BBC Four) offered a rare, if excruciating, opportunity to observe the course of the Brexit negotiations from Europe’s point of view. It allowed the viewer to walk a mile in the EU’s shoes or, at any rate, those of Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister appointed chief Brexit coordinator on behalf of the European Parliament.

Desmet trailed around after Verhofstadt for two years, filming meetings of the Brexit steering group he chaired (not to be confused with those run by the European Council and the European Commission or the actual EU negotiating team led by Michel Barnier) as they experienced, at second hand, the ups and – mostly – downs of David Davis and Theresa May’s efforts to extricate the UK from the EU.