Yet now that Ursula Von der Leyen has been approved as the next President of the European Commission, it will be difficult for anyone to pretend I was wrong. Make no mistake: despite Von der Leyen being a complete unknown outside of her native Germany, her domestic political record confirms I am no liar. As German defence minister for the last five and-a-half years, she has argued more loudly than many for an EU army while refusing to support payment of the minimum contribution fee to NATO. Von der Leyen – known in Brussels as the Chris Grayling of German politics – is a fanatical federalist.

Von der Leyen has an incredibly ambitious programme for her five-year term. In 20 years of sitting in the Strasbourg chamber, I have never heard a speech like the one she gave this week, in which she set out an overt bid for the EU to take control of all kinds of arrangements inside individual nation states, from an EU minimum wage to the harmonisation of corporation tax. In terms of foreign policy, member states’ vetos must be removed so that a new European army can be deployed with a minimum of fuss. All aspects of the Union will be backed up by the rule of law, presided over by EU prosecutors.

I responded to this dictatorial wish list by saying it sounded like an updated form of Communism. Inevitably, there were howls of protest in the chamber. But the real point is that the EU bully boys (and girls) are not pretending anymore. A deeper, more centralised political union is to be built, with no dissent allowed.