'EU still hasn't understood that it is a totalitarian institution.' JANET DALEY

There you have it: a perfect summary of the European Union philosophy. In comments which were presumably made without embarrassment, a clutch of senior EU officials last week provided the Telegraph with a concise summing up of how this thing works. The UK, they said, will be forced to give up on Brexit when faced with “the bureaucratic nightmare” in which it will be entrapped by the most vindictive (sorry, the toughest) negotiations that could be devised.

If I hadn’t long passed the point of being shocked, I would find this breathtaking. Here it is, laid out in the most blithe, confident terms: the shameless contempt for a clear expression of democratic will, and the blatant use of the power of an unelected bureaucracy to undermine the intentions of a national government. Not to mention the utter, imperturbable belief in their own righteousness which justifies what might seem to the benighted oiks who think there is some sort of virtue in self-government, like an outrage.

The institutions of the EU were devised for precisely this purpose: to ensure that the People with their mad, dangerous ideas could never again get the upper hand

There are two possibilities here. The first is that this supercilious confidence in the inevitable triumph of the EU steamroller is just bluster. In truth, the real power in Europe lies with the heads of national governments who are in rather closer touch with reality, having to submit themselves to electorates occasionally, than those obnoxious Commission officials who tend to do most shooting off at the mouth. Hence, Angela Merkel’s less sanguine observation that the EU was “in a critical situation” (as is her Christian Democratic party, it turns out) and even, presenting a rather different face from the belligerent one he generally displays to a British audience, Jean-Claude Juncker’s judgement that the EU was facing a “battle for survival”.

Even within the more rational, and less vociferous, of the Brussels apparat there is probably some understanding of the British historical tendency to remain undaunted (and even strengthened in their resolve) by threats. Surely, among the saner elements, there is an appreciation of the danger of popular unrest which is spreading like a virus in so many member states and which cannot simply be derided into extinction or crushed by fiat. Donald Tusk made much of his pronouncement that the Bratislava summit would need to produce a “sober and brutally honest assessment” of the current situation. So yes, maybe the arrogance of those anonymous officials who count on being able to bully the UK into dropping all this Brexit nonsense is nothing but – if you’ll forgive the term – Dutch courage. Telegraph.