Why Jean-Claude Juncker is so smug

There is something distinctly unpleasant about Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. He looks and sounds smug. He behaves as if he is one of the most important political figures in the world. He thinks Britain is stupid and will regret leaving the European Union. Well, he is right there, the latter bit at least. We in Britain are all going to regret Brexit for the rest of our lives, except for Nigel Farrage, Michael Gove and the people who wear nationalist anti-immigrant T-shirts for breakfast. Nevertheless, I have this nagging feeling that President Juncker is inwardly chortling over Britain's decision to return to being a small island of not much significance. When you are president of the mighty bureaucracy in Brussels you like member nations to do as they are told and conform to his vision of a federal Europe with its own army and everything. It's partly because of people like Juncker and his over-inflated opinion of himself that a lot of voters in this country put the cross in the Leave box on Referendum Day. As soon as the UK has finally left the EU, Juncker is going to wrap his arms around the remaining member nations and draw them ever closer together so that he can keep a proper eye on them. Well good luck with that, Juncker, and no doubt he will raise a few glasses of his favourite chateau wine in celebration once those awkward Brits have gone. There seems to be a feeling in the UK that the EU really needs us and that Brexit will be as much regretted by the other EU nations as most sensible people in the UK will regret it. I'm not convinced. I think the likes of Juncker have already written us off and care little for our post-EU existence. He believes in club rules and we are about to be blackballed. Juncker and his negotiating team are definitely not in the business of doing the UK any favours. So, David Davis, the Brexit minister, and his Leave acolytes are going to come away with a paltry and very expensive deal that will benefit the EU and not the UK. Juncker knows that which is why he sounds even more smug than usual.