The idea that the EU hasn't been doing a post-mortem on Brexit is preposterous; that discussion has been going on internally for years, if not decades.

The UK made a series of demands to stay on. The EU decided UK membership wasn't worth those changes to how the EU was run. 1/

What is that if not reflection?

The way some people are going on about the EU not learning any lessons, it feels like the only way the EU could prove it had learned from Brexit is by going "oh, crap" and now limiting freedom of movement somehow. 2/

Brexit was regrettable, from an EU perspective, but also the culmination of what I'll call a political culture clash that had been simmering since at least Maastricht, if not sooner.

If there is a lesson, it's that not everyone wants "ever closer union"... 3/

... but obviously the bulk of the Member States do. Not genuinely sure how they're then meant to incorporate the Brexit process beyond writing off the UK as just not being on the same page anymore, if not simply in a different book. 4/4