If there is one thing that unites the European Union’s establishment it is an aversion to attacks on its power and privilege. Hence the European parliament’s response to the “outrageous malevolence” of Donald Trump’s choice of US ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch. All the major political groups apparently want him declared persona non grata.

Malloch does not suffer the vice of reticence. He claims in a former diplomatic life to have helped bring down the Soviet Union, and would quite like to do the same for the EU. “Maybe there’s another union needs a little taming,” he says. He supports Brexit and says the euro is doomed. He claims Trump’s support for these views. Malloch is no fool and was not likening the Soviet Union to the EU. But tact is clearly not his strong suit.

So what? Diplomatic custom and practice holds that ambassadors should be political virgins. Theirs is a cardboard job, consumed by archaic ritual. It has never recovered from the coming of the telephone and the jet plane. In a digital age its chief skills are those of consul and hotelier.

Malloch’s views are most unlikely to shift MEPs from their obsessive conservativism and resistance to reform. Felling the Soviets was a doddle in comparison. But it was never a requirement of envoys to the Soviet Union that they support communism, or to Saudi Arabia that they support misogyny – or even that they decline to oppose it.

The lie to the importance of the modern ambassador was always given by the US itself, by using the post to reward money donors and buddies of the president of the day. As such they function personally to represent the views of their president to their host nation or organisation. In that role, Malloch seems perfectly cast.

The reality is that the EU’s leaders are still in shock as they come to realise that President Trump was not play acting, any more than were Britain’s referendum voters. The new politics is rolling like thunder towards them. This is to be international relations for the foreseeable future, and they had better get used to it. The EU faces an upsurge in nationalism within its own borders. It will do its leaders good to hear some unwelcome versions of it from within their walls.

MEPs can always deploy against Malloch their most feared weapon, and not invite him to their beloved receptions. But they should take heart. They have long been adept at welcoming sceptics and turning them into ardent supporters. They should treat Malloch as merely a challenge. It may not matter who wins, but it will not be dull. Bring on the clowns.