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It would be fair to say that Sir Nicholas Soames is not exactly Boris Johnson’s biggest fan. Having lost the Tory whip, the Member for mid-Sussex belittled Boris as “nothing like” his

grandfather, Winston Churchill. Yet even Soames was aghast at yesterday’s ambush of Boris in Luxembourg, which he described as “unhelpful grandstanding”. The Prime Minister received the

“empty podium” treatment at the hands of his counterpart in the Grand Duchy. Xavier Bettel deliberately insulted his British guest in absentia, after the latter refused to take part in an

outdoor press conference surrounded by protesters. Bettel then proceeded to castigate the British policy on Brexit. When asked what he thought of the suggestion that Boris Johnson might

disregard Parliament’s instruction to request an Article 50 extension at the EU summit next month, Bettel replied: “This would not happen in Luxembourg.” Perhaps it is just as well that the

British press was there to report this farcical incident, because it revealed with absolute clarity what the European political class thinks, not only of Boris, but of the very idea of

Brexit. Representing those Britons who take the Luxembourger side is Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, who now says that the best thing for all concerned would be to revoke Article

50. No longer does they argue for a “people’s vote” — they just want to cancel Brexit. It is no longer correct to call this faction “Remainers”. They are Revokers. On the other side are

those, including many Remainers as well as virtually all who voted Leave, who believe that in a democracy the 2016 referendum, which was ordained and then endorsed by Parliament, cannot just

be ignored. Nor, for these people, can the popular concerns that fuelled the Leave vote be brushed under the carpet. They are not all happy to be called populists, but they do claim to

speak for the people and they are in favour of plebiscites. Let’s call them the Plebeians, or Plebs for short. It is easy to see why Xavier Bettel’s intervention helps Britons to clarify

where they stand. If you feel embarrassed to be represented by Boris Johnson and reckon that he deserved to be shown up in this way, then you are probably a Revoker. If, on the other hand,

you think Bettel’s behaviour demonstrates the contempt of the EU elite for the democratic decision of the British electorate, then you are probably a Pleb. Nicholas Soames, then, was only

half right. What Xavier Bettel did was indeed grandstanding, but it was not unhelpful. He has helped a lot of Britons make up their minds about whose side they are on. One of the Plebs, Iain

Duncan Smith, pointed out the “irony” that “Luxembourg was saved by Britain”. He was referring to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when Luxembourg was recreated as an independent mini-state

after having been absorbed for two decades by Napoleonic France. Both Prussia and The Netherlands laid claim to the Grand Duchy, whose fortified capital had strategic importance, but the

British insisted that it remain a buffer state on Europe’s most embattled border. Luxembourg was occupied by the Germans in both world wars. Though annexed by Hitler and governed by a

quisling leader, Gustav Simon, Luxembourg’s government-in-exile was supported in London. After Liberation by the US Army in 1944, the Grand Duchy was resurrected yet again at the behest of

the Western Allies. This brief history of Luxembourg omits the shameful history of collaboration and the genocidal treatment of the 3,500 Jews who lived there before the war. Those who did

not flee were almost all deported and murdered in the Holocaust: only 43 survived. In June 1943, Gustav Simon declared the Grand Duchy judenfrei. Yet after the war Luxembourg was treated by

the Allies as a victim of Nazi occupation. Its population is now the richest in the entire OECD. To coin a phrase, all this did happen in Luxembourg. Xavier Bettel (and his predecessor

Jean-Claude Juncker) should beware of lecturing the British about democracy. One never knows when the not-so-Grand Duchy might find itself in need of our help again.