One small trip on the Eurostar for Keir Starmer is one giant kick in the teeth for Rishi Sunak.

The Labour leader’s Grand Tour today descended on Paris, after his trips last week to Canada, where he was received by Justin Trudeau, and the Hague, where the prime minister in waiting consulted Europol, the European police agency, on his inchoate plan to stop the boats.

Macron and Starmer are undoubtedly enjoying today’s love-in, but tomorrow the European Union will remain as fractured as it has ever been

And now, the City of Light. After successfully transiting the squalid Gare du Nord without being mugged yesterday, Starmer was today whisked to the Elysée for talks with President Emmanuel Macron, kicking off British week in Paris. King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive tomorrow for their three-day state visit, delayed by seasonal rioting earlier this year. The royal visit is attracting much more attention on French news channels than Starmer’s.

Accompanying Starmer on his trip was the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy. With the party between 14 to 18 points ahead in the polls and with a general election looming next year, Labour can credibly claim Starmer’s visit as a coup.

The Elysée naturally denied that there is anything unusual in receiving an opposition leader months before an election, explaining that ‘the strategic nature of the bilateral relationship justifies us receiving him to test the major policies with us that he may put into his electoral programme.’

But the reality is that Starmer is being treated here as the prime minister presumptive and this is far more than a courtesy visit for a coffee and croissant. The agenda, according to the French, includes ‘our vision for UK-France relations tomorrow’ and ‘what do we do with Brexit.’ These words are emollient but in terms of commitment, meaningless. Macron is more interested in his vision than Starmer’s.

For Macron, this is mainly about putting the boot in to Sunak. The president’s spokesman witheringly added, ‘it is normal for us to be able to address such questions of a strategic nature, with strategic partners, ahead of an important election.’ Thus granting equivalence between the British government and its opposition.

In this love-in, everyone is a winner, except Sunak.

Macron can passively-aggressively insult the British government by embracing and essentially endorsing the leader of the opposition. Starmer can cosplay as a statesman with his Elysée palace photo opportunity and motorcades and bask in a turbocharged boost to his stature in Europe, where he has previously had a lowish profile.

The media here is in no doubt Starmer is advancing. Le Figaro, the centre-right daily, has declared Starmer a Labour leader ‘who talks like a Conservative,’ distancing his party from its former extreme leftism. Libération, of the left, said his visit to Paris was ‘the opportunity to develop his image abroad while continuing to refine his vision for the United Kingdom.’

Brexiteers fear, not without some reason, that Starmer is manoeuvring Britain towards a return to the EU, and Macron has similar thoughts. Starmer was clearly opposed to Brexit, and backed a second referendum, although he’s denied his intention to rejoin. ‘Labour will make Brexit work’, is his line.

By reversing it? David Lammy, who once compared Brexiteers to Nazis, suggested in June that Labour could tear up the Brexit deal to forge closer economic links with the bloc, as part of his ‘Britain Reconnected’ scheme. This is ambiguous at best and doubtfully achievable without a rewrite of the withdrawal agreement.

Noises off from Brussels yesterday suggested that Starmer is indulging in fantasies if he imagines he can reopen the withdrawal agreement to Britain’s benefit, but the credibility of Brussels has never been so questionable. Macron’s declared willingness to discuss Britain’s relationship with Europe is far more flexible than the petulance of the Eurocrats. But Starmer is dreaming if he imagines there’s a greatly better deal on offer, even from an otherwise friendless Macron.

Wolfgang Münchau, the EU political commentator, says, ‘Sir Keir Starmer’s attempt to re-write the relationship is based on a delusion that it is possible to stay outside the single market and the customs union, and get a better deal. This is a political lie.’

Starmer in Paris makes for tremendous political theatre as he tries to peddle the idea of repairing relations with the EU, yet it seems quite disconnected from all the other innumerable existential crises confronting the union, France and that cluster of intractable problems that would inevitably face an ingenue Labour government in Britain.

The newest elephant is not in the room but in Lampedusa in Italy which has received more than 7,000 migrants in 48 hours with more on the way. Nothing is as dangerous for EU cohesion as this migrant crisis. France has imposed border controls on the Italian frontier to halt the flux of francophone migrants, with only partial success.

After Angela Merkel welcomed a million Syrians, Germany has warned it will not take migrants from Italy. Ursula von der Leyen, who lacks any electoral mandate, is calling for the rest of Europe to welcome more migrants and threatening to punish members who refuse to take their share. The EU has rarely seemed so estranged from Europeans, who other than in Britain are turning sharply to the right. Brussels has essentially no strategy whatsoever for halting the tide of migrants.

Ironically, Starmer is one of the few European politicians who has declared himself willing to accept a share of this burden, in return for Europe accepting the return of the boat people. Yet none of this seems especially grounded in reality. Europe doesn’t want the boat people back, and Britain looks likely to continue accepting migrants from the continent, barring any credible effort to stop them.  An effort which the French are evidently not making.

Macron and Starmer are undoubtedly enjoying today’s love-in, but tomorrow the European Union will remain as fractured as it has ever been, with British re-entry as problematic as ever. French cities will remain wracked by gang violence as its para-colonial empire in Africa disintegrates, with hundreds of thousands heading north towards France. And Macron remains deeply unpopular with his agenda stalled by a fractious National Assembly. Britain, regardless of which party prevails in the coming election, will remain submerged in debt, taxation, wokery and collapsing public services.

Photo opportunities at the Elysée will address none of this.