A pope’s funeral is a chance for world leaders to talk to each other face to face as if at a summit meeting. Many of these “informal” conversations will be choreographed by officials, logged in leaders’ schedules as “brush bys” and “bilats” (bilateral meetings), and for Keir Starmer they provide an unexpected opportunity to finalise negotiations with European leaders ahead of the EU-UK summit at Lancaster House on 19 May.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, let the cat out of the bag in an interview with the BBC in Washington on Friday, in effect admitting that the British government had given up on a US trade deal and was now focused on easing trade barriers with the EU instead.
