Add this to the myriad questions that Angela Merkel's looming departure as German chancellor raises: Will her exit bury London's hopes that Germany will intervene on its behalf and steer the Brexit talks in the U.K.'s favor?

If the short history of Brexit is any indication, the answer has to be "No." Desperation is known to breed false hope; in the U.K.'s case, it has progressed to full-blown delusion.

This week the Spectator's James Kirkup documented how David Cameron misread Merkel from the beginning. "Cake was never on her menu, either before or after the referendum," he wrote.

It seems the more Merkel resisted Downing Street's overtures, the more convinced the Conservative Party became it was all just part of an elaborate negotiating ritual, as if Germans had suddenly become masters of subtlety.

How Cameron's misreading of Merkel led to Brexit - The Spectator

Merkel is also central to the superstitious beliefs of some Brexiteers about how Germany and the EU operates, a view that suggests German carmarkers run Germany's European policy and that Merkel would, in the final analysis, do anything to strike a deal allowing them to sell cars to the UK freely.

"Post #Brexit a UK-German deal would include free access for their cars and industrial goods, in exchange for a deal on everything else," Davis wrote a couple of months before becoming Britain's main Brexit negotiator.

And then in October 2016, Merkel clearly and publicly explained why this magical thinking cut no ice with her: preserving the EU project matters more to her and Germany than accommodating the parochial interests of either the UK government or the Conservative Party: