Britain's MEPs ushered quietly off stage as the EU show goes on

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, warns the EU institutions and other member states against trying to punish Britain for the referendum outcome and alienating the UK before it has left the EU.

She predicts there will be pressure to remove Britons from powerful jobs that have a bearing on the UK’s future relations with the EU. “Some MEPs may feel uncomfortable that a Brit chairs the single market committee in the European parliament [Conservative Vicky Ford] and some member states may find it annoying that a Brit runs DG Grow,” a reference to Lowri Evans, the most senior civil servant at the commission’s business department.