That sod Jean-Claude

The title is my feeble attempt to emulate the front-page 100-point headline in The Sun of 27 years ago: UP YOURS DELORS!

‘Claude’ and ‘sod’ aren’t a precise rhyme, but at least it goes the Sun screamer one better by not relying on the mispronunciation of the culprit’s name. Incidentally, later in the piece The Sun referred to Mr Delors’s ethnic origin by telling him to “Frog off”, which these days would qualify as a hate crime.

The Sun invective was caused by Delors’s plans for closer European integration, which caused Mrs Thatcher to outshout The Sun with her shriek of “No! No! No!”

At the time Delors held the post now occupied with distinction by Jean-Claude Junker, or ‘Junk’, as he likes to be called by his friends among whom I proudly number myself.

Now Junk has made a Yes! Yes! Yes! speech that went even further than ‘Up Yours’ Delors in enunciating what the EU is all about.

Junk wishes to be elected as the unequivocal president of the United States of Europe served by a single finance minister who would impose uniform corporate taxes and VAT for all 27 members. Junk also wants to create a pan-European security service, a single European army and just about a single everything else.

Brexit, explained Junk, has removed the last obstacle in the way of this noble goal, and the continent can now heave a collective sigh of relief. Of course, there’s always the danger that the EU might miss Britain’s billions, but Junk is confident he’ll be able to extort enough of those anyway, by way of a divorce settlement.

My friend’s speech has caused a hostile reaction among those hacks and parliamentarians who obtusely refuse to see the advantages of Britain’s effectively becoming a province in the Fourth Reich. To Junk and his other friend Tony these are indisputable, and it took all his will-power not to end his soliloquy with a thunderous Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Präsident!

I’m amazed he was able to restrain himself, for Junk’s friends know how he is when in his cups, which is more or less always. You see, Junk keeps Scotland’s economy afloat almost single-handedly by consuming toxic amounts of Glenfarclas malt whisky, a shared predilection on which our friendship is based.

But restrain himself he did, possibly because that second bottle of Glenfarclas of the day made him too mellow to shout bellicose slogans.

The closest he came to a modified version of the time-proven battle cry was to explain that “Europe would be easier to understand if there was one captain steering the ship.” Even that thought could have been expressed more epigrammatically (Ein Schiff, ein Kurs, ein Kapitän!), but Junk missed the opportunity.

Actually, Europe isn’t all that hard to understand even now, before Junk has laid his shaking hands on the helm he seeks. Junk has simply reiterated, with Glanfarclas-inspired honesty, the founding desideratum of the European Union: creation of a single superstate based on the model of the Third Reich, ideally minus the death camps.

Yet all those Little Englander fossils are up in arms, saying awful things about Junk rather than thanking him for his frankness. After all, too many other EU officials and fans obscure the actual meaning of the EU with lies about its mainly economic aims.

In that they follow the course charted by their illustrious founders, such as Jean Monnet. Back in 1952 he laid down a commandment I love so much I keep quoting it: “Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”

In other words, the EU’s fathers, all those Monnets, Schumans, Spaaks, Spinellis and Gaspieris, taught their children both the strategy (creating a single European superstate) and the tactics (lying about it the better to trick Europeans into toeing the line).

So much more refreshing is my friend Junk’s frank statement that the disguise prescribed by Monnet may now be abandoned. No subterfuge is any longer necessary. He wants to be captain of a single European state – full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.

Junk has already left the British torpedo in his wake, and he seems to be unaware of any others. The combination of his French Christian name and German surname is so symbolic of the EU’s essence that he seems to think that all remaining members see things the same way.

They don’t. The Poles, for example, cordially hate the Germans, which I observed first-hand as a student in Russia. Every summer I used to freelance as interpreter-guide for British and American student groups, who usually stayed at large dormitory-style hostels they shared with similar groups from all over the world.

Tour organisers knew not to put Polish and German tourists on the same floor, for otherwise fights would break out every time. Once my group had to share a coach with several Polish students. Since coach space was at a premium, the organisers decided to fill our three empty seats with German girls.

Yet the Poles grabbed the poor things and bodily tossed them off the coach. When I tried to interfere, they cried: “Don’t you understand? These are Germans!”

That was almost 50 years ago, and the feelings might have become less febrile since then. But recent actions on the part of the Polish (and also Hungarian) government suggest the old flame hasn’t been completely extinguished.

The EU waters are still full of torpedoes, and all it takes is one or two more to sink the ship Junk proposes to captain. But for the time being, he’s a happy bunny, letting Glanfarclas do his talking.

So here’s to you, Junk, you old sod. Enjoy it while you can.