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ON February 18 I heard the Foreign Secretary repeatedly tell the Munich Security Conference that leaving the EU would mean "liberation". A man of his intelligence surely knew that in Munich the word means escape from Nazi rule. Not a new theme for him: on May 16 2016 he had told Sunday Telegraph readers that the European Commission's aims were similar to those of Hitler's Third Reich. And he had since compared President Juncker to a prisoner-of-war camp guard. But in Munich, where the EU is seen as a guarantee against past horrors returning, the shock was palpable: turning to me, a former German diplomat said: "He really doesn't want to make it easy for Mrs Merkel to help Mrs May, does he?" Good question. And I'm still not sure of the answer. One hears tales of similar failures to win friends elsewhere. Does he think that if Brexit goes badly the ball might still come free at the back of the scrum, and he might touch down in No 10? Is he still playing to the Mail/ Telegraph audience and isn't too bothered about foreigners? He knows that David Davis can't move the Brussels negotiation on from the financial details of the divorce settlement to parallel discussion of our future relations with the EU 27 if we plan to renege on legal commitments. So why does he tell the Commons that the 27 "can whistle for" any UK payment? And why doesn't he do the one thing that really would help? The divorce negotiation is intrinsically difficult, because it's a zero-sum game. The less the EU gets from us, the more the other dozen net contributors have to pay, or the harder hit are the net recipients, the poorer countries of Southern and Eastern Europe. So all 27 seek to maximise their claims, and we are right to scrutinise them rigorously. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]