You can smell the fear in Brussels

The EU's unelected officials are thugs and bullies, used to throwing their weight around without any voters behind them to teach them sense. They exist in a vacuum, in a rarefied world of pretence and privilege that rarely brings them into contact with reality. Hence they are glacial in reacting to risks and threats, such as the coming financial crisis which will engulf the Eurozone. But like all bullies, when fronted up, when challenged, when thwarted they freeze.

The United Kingdom Parliament has stood firm against their attempts to 'punish' the UK. They are now faced with either modifying or removing the Backstop to the UK's satisfaction or seeing us leave in a Clean Brexit. That is the reality, and one can smell the fear in Brussels. Sure, we have made mistakes. Our biggest was to entrust the draft treaty negotiations to a child. As Fraser Nelson writes in the Telegraph

This time, she needs a proper team. Leaving it to a civil servant, Olly Robbins, was always going to lead to disaster. The mess he led her into – agreeing a “backstop” arrangement with the EU that Britain might be stuck in forever – was never going to pass through Parliament. She’s taking Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, whom MPs trust to spot any trap in the EU small print.

Well, there are still plenty of Robbins' mistakes in the draft treaty, but none we can't live with in the short term. We can pick the bones out of it as and when we must.

Parliament's backbone is strengthened if it has public opinion behind it, and the polls are now swinging to a public preference for a Clean Brexit. The British have seen the nasty face of the EU, the bullying, the arrogance and the intransigence and have turned against it. People are prepared to take the hit and get it over with. Yet again, British people have more faith in themselves than do many of their MPs.

Most of all, the unelected officials are now worrying about getting money out of us. Yesterday the threat shifted subtly to 'If you don't pay us you won't get a trade deal', to which we must reply 'Well, no trade deal, no geld'.

We really do want to continue the best possible relations with all the nations of Europe, but they really need to wise up - the trolls, fools and poseurs in the Berlaymont, the folie de grandeur that infects Brussels, with all its silly little medals and petty distinctions, is not serving them well.