Who does Donald Tusk think he is? We’ve always been so civil with these ‘EU dirty rats’

Telling EU leaders they’re like Hitler is exactly the sort of skilled diplomacy that has made these Brexit negotiations pass off so smoothly

How dare Donald Tusk be rude about “those who promoted Brexit without a plan to carry it out?” Those who promoted Brexit have gone out of their way for 30 years to use polite language about Europe, always well-mannered with the highest standards of decorum, because we’re British. We’re not like these rude foreign mental cases with their shitty croissants.

The Sun is especially annoyed, declaring: “Sneering Eurocrat Tusk’s tantrum shows a disregard for democracy.” You can see why the newspaper is upset, as it has always expressed its feelings towards the EU in such carefully crafted terms, with headlines such as “Up yours Delors” and “EU dirty rats”. If anything, The Sun is too polite – so polite its words can be compared to the dialogue in a BBC adaptation of a Jane Austen novel.

For example, the first draft of an earlier message about EU leaders went: “Sire, it is with good grace and humble desire for fine countenance, we consort to implore your eminence to reconsider on certain matters within your treatise. We trust you are in fine spirits.” Of course, the newspaper had to shorten it a bit so it came out as “Hop off, you frogs”. But it meant the same.

Throughout these discussions, Britain insisted on kindly language from delicate spokespeople such as Boris Johnson. So instead of sounding petulant, like Donald Tusk, Johnson calmed everyone down by announcing that Hitler tried to create a European superstate and the EU is trying to do the same.

It’s a proud part of our British heritage: in disputes with other nations we placate all sides, and telling EU leaders they’re like Hitler is exactly the sort of skilled diplomacy that has made these Brexit negotiations pass off so smoothly.

When Jeremy Hunt took Johnson’s place, instead of inflaming matters, like Donald Tusk, he told the EU it was behaving like the Soviet Union under Stalin, right in front of people who had been detained in Stalin’s gulags. If he’s right, this means the EU has arrested several million people who voted to leave, without a trial, and dumped them in a freezing Siberian prison. Across the wastelands of Russia there must be fields full of people from Stoke asking the guards, “Can you find out how we got on away at Ipswich?”

When Hunt was asked if he regretted making those remarks, he said: “Since that speech we have had a very different approach from the EU.” You see, that was the trouble all along – the foreigners just needed telling. That must be why, ever since he gave them a good talking to, everything’s flowed along like a pretty stream, with such jollity that Brexit has hardly been in the news at all.

It’s unfair of Tusk to condemn anyone in Britain for campaigning to leave the EU without a plan. There was a highly coherent plan, which is why Liam Fox could announce Brexit “will be the easiest deal in history”, and we were told that “as soon as we leave, Angela Merkel will be banging on our door”.

It’s not the Brexiteers’ fault if the EU and Merkel mucked that plan up by not doing what we planned for. The same thing happened when I went into an Aston Martin showroom last week. I had a plan that I’d offer £50 for a customised five litre DB11, and then bargain the salesman down to £35. But the incalcitrant arse walked off and called security. How could I possibly have anticipated that?

David Davis also told us that “we will conduct individual trade deals with EU countries” – until he was informed no EU country could do that, as it would break one of the fundamental rules of the EU. So he had a plan and it’s not his fault if that plan was impossible. I expect the same happens if he plays snooker. He says, “If I miss all the balls with the cue, it won’t matter as I’ll ask a friend to ride an ostrich across the table and that should knock them in the pockets.”

In any case, we’re lucky he didn’t have a prominent position in the planning process; he was only the Brexit secretary.

Another part of the plan is the promise that the EU will back down at the last minute, as “that’s what they always do”. As Davis has said, the bloc needs to come to an agreement because we buy one-third of the EU’s Prosecco. This is exactly why we hold all the cards at the moment. It is the EU that is panicking, compared to us with our calm and measured ways. The EU only has 27 nation states to rely on, so without us buying one-third of its Prosecco it’ll struggle to make it to April.

So Donald Tusk is being absolutely outrageous when he says the promoters of Brexit had “no plan”. The plan all along was for the first and then second negotiator to resign, for both to oppose the deal they negotiated, and the foreign secretary to resign, followed by half the cabinet, and for no one to have realised there would be a border with Ireland, and votes to be lost by record amounts, and for rehearsals for when 50,000 lorries are stuck in Kent and businesses to stockpile toilet rolls and insulin, and the government to be dependent on creationists, and plans made for the evacuation of the Queen until it could now be announced we’re in a customs union with The Jungle Book and all have to dance with bears, or Britain has been reclassified as a beehive and Arlene Foster is our queen.

Nobody is surprised, because everything’s going to plan.