TWO men stand in the way of a Brexit deal benefiting millions of people: a cognac-soaked clown and a puffed-up dandy.

For months British voters and politicians have been mocked, belittled and abused by EU head Jean-Claude Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

4 Compared with Barnier, Brexit Secretary David Davis is a model of affable flexibility, tact and professionalism Credit: EPA

The Sun had assumed Brussels would engage professionals to handle the most vital negotiation in decades. Instead these posturing buffoons are in charge.

What do they hope to achieve with their daily barbs, poisonous briefings, pig-headed intransigence and exorbitant demands? If it’s to show other electorates how hard it is to leave the EU, they’re rather labouring the point.

If it’s to intimidate Britain into rethinking Brexit, they are in la-la land.

That ship sailed long ago. Hearts have hardened. With every sneering insult, Brits grow more certain we made the right choice and that the EU, not our Government, will be to blame if talks fail.

Compared with Barnier, Brexit Secretary David Davis is a model of affable flexibility, tact and professionalism.

A harmonious deal looks increasingly unlikely as the clock ticks and Barnier and Juncker keep up their destructive double-act. We must prepare to leave without one. But that need not happen.

4 Credit: Getty Images

It is time for the grown-ups, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, to seize negotiators by the throat and tell them to stop wasting time with point-scoring one-upmanship. Big firms on the Continent — Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Siemens, Renault — should demand it.

A “no deal” Brexit will cost them dear.

Their profits and the vast number of jobs depending on them cannot be at the mercy of blockheads in Brussels.

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Brexit hypocrite

4 Nicky Morgan has been labelled a hypocrite Credit: AFP or licensors

IS ex-Minister Nicky Morgan unaware how ludicrous she sounds accusing Brexit-voting colleagues of “undermining” negotiations?

She’d scrap them, and the referendum vote, if she had her way.

She and sidekick Anna Soubry were mediocre Tory ministers who have been bent on causing Theresa May trouble ever since she fired them.

Tories in their Leave-backing constituencies should haul them in and demand they represent voters’ views.

Which means not obstructing the EU Withdrawal Bill — and falling in behind the Government’s Brexit plan.

A sick waste

4 Credit: Getty Images - Getty

WHY is NHS England wasting precious resources writing tedious warnings to patients and staff about the Press?

Leave aside the implication of the 1,500-word lecture being that journos are jackals. The health service should be focusing on treating terror victims, not telling them how to “control their story”.

If they want to speak to a reporter, it’s none of the NHS’s business.