There’s only one thing to do with bullies – and that’s stand up to them and tell them where to get off.

Which is precisely what we, as a proud nation, must do to the EU in light of the outrageous behaviour of so many of them towards Theresa May in Salzburg last week.

From Donald Tusk’s nasty, sneering and childish social media post of himself handing Mrs May some cakes, to the ludicrous, grandiloquent posturings of French president Emanuel Macron – who had the Gallic gall to patronise us ill-informed, gullible, stupid Brits over our apparent colossal mistake in voting to leave the EU.

Well, here in the Barrow and Furness constituency we voted by a clear majority of 66-plus per cent in favour of leaving the EU. And after last week’s treatment by the EU27 leaders of our prime minister (and, by association, of us), I’d bet that figure, if the decision were put again to us now, would be nudging 80 per cent in favour of getting out.

By its collective churlish and bullying behaviour in Austria last week, the EU showed itself in its true colours – not, of course, for the first time.

It showed itself in all its over-reaching, anti-democratic, dogmatic inflexibility; and it is no surprise that the insulting words and actions of those leaders in Salzburg have had precisely the opposite effect of what was intended.

Do they really need showing again how we as a nation stand up to bullying empire builders on the Continent? Surely recent history hasn’t been forgotten so quickly?

The more the EU patronises us, threatens us and does everything it can to make us vote again to right correct our “mistake” in voting out, the more we will dig our heels in.

It is now pretty clear that the EU does not want to do a deal with us (even though they are bound by treaty to negotiate to do just that with any member state who dares to attempt to leave/escape).

So be it. The time has surely now come for an entire change of tack by the Prime Minister and by her civil servant advisers who have served her poorly.

The £39bn on the table to pay the divorce bill/ransom should be taken off the table forthwith – and we must put plans in place to trade worldwide and on entirely different terms with the EU than their leaders wish.

There may well be short term economic discomfort from a clean-break Brexit. But a nation as resourceful and enterprising as ours will ultimately thrive. We are the world’s fifth or sixth largest economy, outward-looking and enterprising, not some basket-case developing country with little to offer on the global stage. Whatever challenges Brexit throws at us on our leaving, we will meet them head on.

We must have the courage of our convictions over Brexit. And we must show those badly-behaved EU leaders that bullies never win.