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If the British people had suspicions about what really goes on in Brussels, “Brexit: Behind Closed Doors” provided disturbing evidence of the contempt with which both sides in negotiations

have treated them. The fly-on-the-wall documentary, shown on BBC Four, revealed a shocking cynicism, not just about Brexit, but about democracy. It showed Guy Verhofstadt, the European

Parliament’s Belgian Chief Brexit Co-Ordinator, claiming that Oliver Robbins, the Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser, had asked him if, after Brexit, he could become a Belgian. “Olly Robbins

came to me and said: ‘Guy, can I become a Belgian citizen after this whole thing because I don’t think I will return,’” Verhofstadt says. How can the country have confidence in a chief

negotiator who apparently does not believe in his own cause? Verhofstadt’s staff, meanwhile, joked that under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement the British had been “kicked out” of the

EU and reduced to a “colony”. In their booze-fuelled late-night sessions, the EU negotiators routinely referred to Theresa May and other British politicians in patronising, derogatory and

often obscene terms. Viewers saw Verhofstadt and his staff watching a live broadcast from the House of Commons of the first vote on the Withdrawal Agreement. Evidently baffled and frustrated

by Westminster’s arcane procedures, he dismisses the whole thing as “insane”. A few weeks later, he can’t be bothered to wait for the Commons to defeat the deal for a second time, but heads

off with his team to his expense-account restaurant. He misses the third vote because he has decamped to relax on his Umbrian vineyard estate. Unfamiliarity with the “mother of Parliaments”

has evidently bred Continental contempt for British democracy. It does not, of course, occur to Verhofstadt that the European Parliament that he represents would not exist if the British

and their “insane” House of Commons had not triumphed in two world wars, both fought to prevent the domination of Europe by the enemies of democracy. Indeed, the _casus belli _for British

entry into World War I was the defence of “brave little Belgium” against German aggression. Michel Barnier, the EU’s French chief negotiator, is rather more measured in his comments: at one

point he appeals to his colleagues to treat the British people “with respect”. But there is general agreement on the EU side that the problem with the British is their adversarial politics.

If only the Brits could just agree among themselves, as other Europeans do, then a deal could be done. But they don’t, so it can’t. “Don’t ask too much of the British,” one of the Brussels

team says, in tones of supreme condescension. Barnier observes pityingly that Britain is going through “an existential crisis” over Brexit. Not that his own determination to impose punitive,

Carthaginian terms has anything to do with it, naturally. So now we know what we are up against: an imperial power that sees Brexit as a threat to its integrity. Brussels will move heaven

and earth to make life hell for the offshore islanders. At the forthcoming EU elections, it will be no surprise if the British respond with a collective raspberry by voting to make the

Brexit Party their largest contingent in the European Parliament. They may be on opposite sides of the Brexit argument, but Verhofstadt and Farage have a symbiotic relationship. The more the

British see of the former, the more they are inclined to vote for the latter. Well done, Guy: you just made Nigel’s day.