Read The Times's exclusive interview with Gordon Brown

Briefing: EU Reform Treaty

Gordon Brown arrived bizarrely late for the EU treaty signing ceremony in Lisbon and signed the document alone, in an extraordinary diplomatic episode that was part snub, part standard mess-up and entirely embarrassing.

How the Prime Minister managed to get himself into that humiliating position is a mystery. By pleading a prior engagement with the Commons Liaison Committee, he seems to have been trying to distance himself from the treaty, but by turning up anyway, when the ceremony was already over, he managed to shoot himself in both feet: annoying anti-Europeans by signing the thing, and annoying pro-Europeans by appearing not to want to.

Mr Brown, it seems, hoped to have his cake and eat it. Except that he did not even get any cake, appearing at the formal lunch for 54 heads of government and foreign ministers just as everyone else was leaving the table. Perhaps they kept a doggy-bag for him, but I doubt it, because Mr Brown is firmly in the EU doghouse.

All the other signatories had put their names to the treaty in the splendidly ornate surroundings of the 16th-century Manueline monastery of Jerónimos. Mr Brown signed it on his own, in a backroom somewhere, while everyone else finished up a sumptuous five-course banquet.

Yesterday had begun in bright Portuguese sunshine – in perfect contrast to the dark Portuguese mood at having their big party so publicly cold-shouldered.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was left to take the stage alone. He did not seem entirely unhappy at being thrust, solo, into the limelight. I met him as he hurried off to the “family photograph” with the other government leaders. “Must go,” he said with a grin. “I wouldn’t want to leave an empty space.” If I did not know how loyal Mr Miliband is to Mr Brown, I would swear he raised an eyebrow.

While Mr Brown was still rushing to catch the plane to Portugal, Mr Miliband was trying to look interested in the opening speech by José Sócrates, the Portuguese Prime Minister and President of the European Council.

“History will not mention the words that will be uttered at this ceremony,” Mr Sócrates predicted, no doubt correctly. “History will remember this as a day when new paths of hope were opened towards the European ideal,” he added, almost certainly incorrectly.

This strange Sócratic dialogue went on for what seemed like days. It became mildly more interesting if you switched the translation to Finnish.

Each of the 27 nations signed the treaty, in turn, strictly alphabetically, while a billowy image of each national flag fluttered behind, and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played on a loop. Each nation signed the two treaty books in pairs, one head of government and one foreign minister, before shaking hands; except the French, who, typically, insisted on overegging the crème brûlée by having three signatories: Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and President. And the British, equally typically, who could muster only one.

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